Primary Care Internet-Based Depression Prevention for Adolescents (CATCH-IT)

In this 5-year, two-site randomized clinical trial, we propose to test the efficacy of the CATCH-IT primary care/Internet based depression prevention intervention against Attention Monitoring Psychoeducation (AMPE) in preventing the onset of depressive episodes in an intermediate to high risk group of adolescents aged 13-17. We plan to (a) identify high risk adolescents based on elevated scores on the PHQ-A, a screening measure of depressive symptoms; (b) recruit 400 (200 per site) of these at-risk adolescents to be randomized into either the CATCH-IT or the AMPE group; (c) assess outcomes at 2, 8, 12, 18, and 24 months post intake on measures of depressive symptoms, depressive diagnoses, other mental disorders, and on measures of role impairment in education, quality of life, attainment of educational milestones, and family functioning; and (d) conduct exploratory analyses to examine the effectiveness of this intervention program, moderators of protection, and potential ethnic and cultural differences in intervention response.