A New Treatment for Adolescent Depression?
Written by Anisha Chikkareddy
Edited by Connie Quan
March 21, 2022
Edited by Connie Quan
March 21, 2022
Is there a way to treat adolescents with depression in a world under the control of a global pandemic? In 2020, the world was thrown into a tailspin by COVID-19. Pressing mental health crises worsened, and younger members of society were not immune to the virus. Right now, there are a lot of challenges with classical treatments for depression such as requiring different treatments, having up to 59% of patients drop out of the treatment plans, and a large accessibility problem (March et al., 2007).
It was for this reason that a group of researchers (Schleider et. al, 2021), wanted to test if there was a better way to treat depression; a more accessible and effective way. They created a nationwide randomized and controlled trial in which two self guided, online, single-session interventions for adolescent depression(which will be hereby referred to as SSIs) were tested. What makes this treatment different from others is that it is a large group of trials composed of brief interventions. The SSIs add to this and make it a more advantageous solution because it is possible to test the success potential of shorter treatments. It also helps with low accessibility problems because conventional treatments require many potentially expensive treatments from highly trained clinicians and causes issues with provider scarcity (Fried et al., 2015).
The first SSI that they tested was Project Personality, a growth mindset (GM) treatment that taught individuals how to think about struggles, symptoms, and personal traits as improbable and changeable. The second was Project ABC, which taught behavioral activation (BA) - a treatment that teaches youth how to manage moods by doing enjoyable activities that are valued by the individual themselves. They also used a control, which was a non-SSI allocated treatment that was of more classic means.
The experiment was set up to determine a reduction in severe depressive symptoms. It aimed to look at decreasing hopelessness, strengthening perceived agency, reducing depression, lowering anxiety symptoms, and managing COVID-19 trauma. 6,884 people were assessed for eligibility, of which 2,452 were picked and subsequently randomized into 3 different groups. Each group was given 1 type of program to follow. What they found was that, as a group, SSIs were more effective since they were shorter with an online option and more accessible to impacted groups.
For Project ABC (BA-SSI), patients were shown to have reduced depressive symptoms ranging from 2 weeks to one month. They reported that they had better problem-solving skills and self agency as well, endorsing the effectiveness of the treatments. For Project Personality, the results showed a 4-9 month improvement in symptoms and then improvements in follow ups. Overall, while there needs to be more in-depth testing done to show the impacts on long term mental health, the immediate benefits seem to point towards SSIs in being a future viable therapy option for adolescents with depression.
References
Fried, E. I. & Nesse, R. M. Depression is not a consistent syndrome: an investigation of unique
symptom patterns in the STAR*D study. J. Affect. Disord. 172, 96–102 (2015).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2014.10.010
March, J. S. et al. The Treatment for Adolescents with Depression Study (TADS): long-term
effectiveness and safety outcomes. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 64, 1132–1144 (2007).
https://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.64.10.1132
Schleider, J.L., Mullarkey, M.C., Fox, K.R. et al. A randomized trial of online single-session
interventions for adolescent depression during COVID-19. Nat Hum Behav (2021).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01235-0
Image Source: "Young depressed woman sitting on sofa and holding head" by pch.vector licensed under Freepik License