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Adolescent Interpersonal Counseling in Primary Care
Sponsor: Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare
Summary
The demand for prevention and treatment of adolescent depression has rapidly increased over years. A national project to improve treatment of adolescent depression in primary care has taken place in Finland starting 2020. The goal of this prospective observational cohort study is to describe pathways to mental health services in adolescents with depressive symptoms. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Do young people reporting depressive symptoms have equal access to treatment? * How is it best to recognize those adolescents who will benefit from IPC-A? Adolescents who participate in the study will * complete a survey on protective and risk factors of depression three times over 6 months * report possible depressive symptoms every two weeks over 6 months * report whether they needed and received help, motivation for treatment, and benefits and harms from treatment We will also collect * information from one of caretakers with two surveys within 6 month- intervals on their view on adolescent's need for support, strengths and risks, and benefits and harms from treatment where applicable * where applicable, from the professional who provided support after the intervention on their training and competence, as well as content of and response to treatment * register data to estimate overall provision and cost of social welfare and health care services one year preceding the study and over 2 to 10 years after the observation period Researchers will compare an intervention that is new in Finland, adolescent interpersonal counseling (IPC-A), to other treatments of depression, to see if it is equal to or better than other treatments of depression.
Official title: Adolescent Depression Treatment Pathways in Primary Care - a Longitudinal Cohort Study Describing Naturalistic Flow of Treatment and Evaluating Effectiveness and Cost-effectiveness of Interpersonal Counseling Compared to Treatment as Usual
Key Details
Gender
All
Age Range
13 Years - 16 Years
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment
9000
Start Date
2024-03-25
Completion Date
2039-12
Last Updated
2025-08-19
Healthy Volunteers
Yes
Interventions
Interpersonal counseling
A structured psychotherapeutic intervention to prevent depression or treat mild to moderate depression. IPC-A is a brief, individual-based intervention (3-8 sessions). The focus is on interpersonal relations as a factor of resilience in depressive symptoms. IPC-A is a shorter form of IPT-A, developed by prof. Myrna Weissman and team.
Treatment as usual
Any other behavioral or medical support or depression indicated by depressive symptoms or depression. This is based on adolescent, caretaker and professional's report.
No support, intervention or other treatment
The group will comprise those adolescents who report sustained depression but do not seek or receive support over 6 months of follow-up based on adolescent and caretaker's report
Locations (4)
The wellbeing services county of Kanta-Häme
Hämeenlinna, Finland
Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare
Helsinki, Finland
The wellbeing services county of Central Finland
Jyväskylä, Finland
The wellbeing services county of North Ostrobothnia
Oulu, Finland