A whole-of-society approach to depression prevention during the global pandemic: Preliminary data from three large-scale trials.

OBJECTIVE

Despite the prevalence of depressive disorders among youth, there is no health system model to address the prevention of these disorders.

METHOD: With the goal of creating effective, tolerable, and scalable interventions for the prevention of adolescent depression, we have fielded three randomized clinical trials, centered in health care delivery organizations that use a whole-of-society approach: (a) Path 2 Purpose (N = 664), comparing the Competent Adulthood Transition with Cognitive Behavioral, Humanistic, and Interpersonal Training (CATCH-IT; B. W. Van Voorhees et al., 2015), guided digital health intervention to a synchronous mental health specialist-led group cognitive behavioral intervention, Coping with Depression Course-Adolescent; (b) PATHway (N = 400), examining the efficacy of the CATCH-IT components; and (c) Behavioral Health Stratified Treatment (N = 780), which examines the feasibility and potential benefit of a coordinated care, risk stratification, and intervention matching approach for adolescents with intellectual and developmental disabilities using both CATCH-IT (lower risk) and the Coping with Depression Course-Adolescent (higher risk).

RESULTS

The study samples for all three trials include youth from traditionally underrepresented groups (71.8%) with some economic distress (47.6%). Intervention utilization was moderate across trials. Feedback from study teams reveals general barriers to implementation and challenges specific to the pandemic.

CONCLUSIONS

We review these trials, report preliminary data on demographics and intervention utilization, and provide feedback from study teams on implementation challenges encountered. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).