Single session interventions: A scalable way to expand access to early help for adolescent depression?

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• Dr Maria Loades
• Thursday 05 October 2023, 12:30-13:30
• https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/6245857987?pwd=WS9QWWxCTXU0ZXFvcUpzU2E2SkRyZz09.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Nikolina Skandali.

Emotional problems like depression become more common during adolescence, with up to one in three experiencing some depression symptoms at any single point in time. Yet, many adolescents who struggle with their mental health do not feel able to ask for help, which creates huge unmet need. Even when they do ask for help, health service capacity limitations and complex service pathways almost always mean they must wait to access it. Those from minoritized and stigmatised groups who are more vulnerable to mental health problems are also disproportionately affected by these barriers to asking for help and are less likely to access traditional clinic-based services. This creates a huge needs-access gap.

This points to the need for brief scalable interventions. Digitally delivered treatment is a way to deliver brief evidence-based interventions at scale, potentially overcoming barriers to seeking and getting help for adolescents like stigma, as well as practicalities like travel and timings of appointments. However, digital treatments like mobile phone apps and Internet based cognitive behavioural therapy (iCBT) suffer from significant attrition before the key active ingredients of change have been (fully) delivered.

A single session intervention (SSI) is a one-off therapeutic intervention with no assumption of a return visit. SSIs, and particularly unguided (i.e., self-help), online SSIs are a potential scalable solution as an addition to current provision for adolescent mental health. Furthermore, SSIs could better engage minoritized and stigmatised populations who may never otherwise access help. In this talk, I will describe the existing SSIs, and the evidence for them, whilst also highlighting gaps in the current evidence base. I will then describe the programme of work I am doing here in the UK, including a sleep SSI , currently under development.

This talk is part of the Department of Psychiatry & CPFT Thursday Lunchtime Seminar Series series.

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