Technology Matters: Online, self‐help single session interventions could expand current provision, improving early access to help for young people with depression symptoms, including minority groups

Abstract

Current mental health service provision for young people was primarily designed based on an assumption of repeat attendance to enable access to interventions. This applies to in‐person therapy and, in recent years, digitally provided apps and programmes. Yet, discontinuation after only one or two attendances or uses is a common problem. However, there is a different model, which is intentionally designing provision without assuming repeat attendance, that is, single session interventions. Evidence from the United States, where a suite of digital, self‐help single session interventions, accessible anonymously, have been designed, indicates that these are helpful to young people with reductions in depression symptoms at up to 9 months later. These interventions also have had better reach into currently underserved populations (e.g. LGBTQ+ and ethnic minority adolescents). Therefore, these may be a potentially helpful way to expand existing provision at scale, enabling all young people to access evidence‐based help quickly.

Adverse childhood experiences are associated with perceived cognitive difficulties among high school students in the United States

“…Assuming so, some of those beliefs might be amenable to belief-change interventions ( Schleider and Weisz, 2018 ). Innovative single-session interventions have been used in several ways to promote better emotional health among adolescents ( Schleider and Weisz, 2018 ; Ching et al, 2023 ; Loades and Schleider, 2023 ). It is possible that single-session interventions could be developed to promote cognitive self-efficacy in children and adolescents, particularly those who have experienced ACEs.…”

Examining Racial and Ethnic Differences in Youth Psychotherapy Treatment Engagement and Outcomes

“…Therefore, the families of Color in this study may be facing resource limitations and barriers to treatment, such as mental health stigma, insurance status, or parental job pressures (Busby et al, 2021;Fante-Coleman & Jackson-Best, 2020;Ofonedu et al, 2017) and subsequently benefitting from short-term treatment duration. It may be beneficial to develop and disseminate other short-term, scalable (e.g., single-session treatments; Loades & Schleider, 2023;Schleider et al, 2022), treatments for families with resource limitations. Youth with resource limitations may also benefit from lower cost of care (e.g., sliding scales) and increased telehealth options (Bailey et al, 2021;Castro-Ramirez et al, 2021;Lichstein et al, 2013).…”

Frontline professionals’ use of and attitudes towards technology to support interventions for adolescents with depression symptoms: A mixed methods survey

“…However, uptake and engagement in using digital mental health interventions has been problematic; effective treatments like internet-based cognitive behaviour therapy (iCBT) suffer from significant drop out; for example, one third of anxious children and adolescents ( N = 4425) who enrolled in an open access 10 session self-help iCBT programme only used one session, and less than a third of those who started the programme completed ≥3 sessions (March et al, 2018). Digital single session interventions (SSIs) intentionally designed as one-off therapeutic self-help interventions with no assumption of a return visit may therefore be a particularly scalable public health solution as an addition to current provision for adolescent depression symptoms (Loades & Ching, 2021; Loades & Schleider, 2023).…”