PATH 2 Purpose: Primary Care and Community-Based Prevention of Mental Disorders in Adolescents

The majority of mental, emotional and behavioral (MEB) disorders have an initial onset before age 24, with 20% annual incidence, with major depressive disorder (MDD) being the most common MEB. Health systems, eager to reduce costs, want to transition from the current "wait until sick enough for treatment" model for MDD to a preventive model. However, evidence is needed for (1) the comparative effectiveness of a "scalable intervention" and (2) an implementation model for such a scalable intervention in the primary care setting. This study is a comparative effectiveness trial evaluating the efficacy of two evidence-based cognitive-behavioral prevention (CBP) programs: Teens Achieving Mastery over Stress (TEAMS), the "gold standard," group therapy model, and Competent Adulthood Transition with Cognitive Behavioral, Humanistic and Interpersonal Training (CATCH-IT), a scalable, self-directed, technology-based model. For implementation during the COVID-19 pandemic, TEAMS has successfully been adapted to an online format and administered online through HIPAA-compliant video conferencing software. For the first cohort, 534 eligible adolescents age 13-19 will be offered one of two different depression prevention programs using cluster randomization in multiple sites in urban and suburban Chicago, Illinois; rural Western Illinois, including Dixon and surrounding towns; and Louisville, Kentucky. Randomization will be blocked into matched pairs of primary health care clinics and school sites and stratified by race, ethnicity, rural-urban commuting area codes, and socio-economic disadvantage using the Distressed Communities Index (DCI) from census-tracked data of each site zip code. A second cohort of 100 eligible adolescents will be recruited through public health media campaigns in Illinois, Kentucky, and Massachusetts utilizing the same eligibility criteria as Cohort One. These participants will connect with the research team by phone, email, web survey, or social media and will be randomized at the individual-level with equal allocation into treatment conditions (CATCH-IT or TEAMS). The investigators will comprehensively evaluate patient-centered outcomes and stakeholder-valued moderators of effect at 2, 6, 12, and 18 month assessment points. Using a hybrid clinical trial design that simultaneously examines implementation process, the study will also assess adolescents', parents' and providers' experiences (i.e. efficacy, time commitment, cultural acceptability, and implementation cost) with each intervention approach. A sub-sample of Cohort Two (n=50, 25 from each intervention arm) will be recruited to participate in open-ended interviews for adolescents to share their experiences of living with subsyndromal depression, coping during the COVID-19 pandemic, their perceived impact of CATCH-IT or TEAMS on their mood and behavior, and the cultural contexts in which these experiences occurred.