Most mental health problems emerge by age 14, often leading to chronic impairments and adverse impacts for individuals, families, and societies. Any action-focused path to reducing the need-to-access gap will require moving beyond the dominant settings, formats, and systems that have constrained intervention delivery to date. In a fully-online trial, youths ages 13-16 will be randomized to 1 of 3 self-administered single-session interventions (SSIs): a behavioral activation SSI, targeting behavioral MD symptoms; an SSI teaching growth mindset, targeting cognitive MD symptoms; or a control SSI. The investigators will test each SSI's relative benefits, versus the control, on depressive symptoms and proximal outcomes such as hopelessness. Results will reveal whether SSIs that were designed to address behavioral versus cognitive symptoms differentially benefit adolescents with elevated depressive symptoms.
Behavioral: Supportive Therapy SSI
Online, 30-minute self-administered program for youth
Other Name: Array
Behavioral: Behavioral Activation SSI
Online, 30-minute self-administered program for youth
Other Name: Array
Behavioral: Growth Mindset SSI
Online, 30-minute self-administered program for youth
Other Name: Array
Inclusion Criteria:
- are fluent in English
- have consistent internet and computer/laptop/smartphone access
- report elevated depressive symptoms (a score of >2 on the Patient Health
Questionnaire-2 item version [PHQ-2])
Exclusion Criteria:
- fail to meet the above-listed inclusion criteria
- exit the study prior to condition randomization
- respond with either copy/pasted responses from text earlier in the intervention to any
of free response questions
- obvious lack of English fluency in open response questions
- responding with random text in open response questions
- duplicate responses from the same individual in baseline or follow-up surveys
We will also exclude for primary analyses (but may run sensitivity analyses including them)
any participants who provide responses of fewer than 3 words to writing prompts that ask
for at least 2 sentences or more.
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, New York, United States
Jessica L Schleider, PhD, Principal Investigator
Stony Brook University