Evaluating the effect of online treatment for youth with mental health problems

Mental health problems in youth are a global problem, causing incalculable suffering in youth and families, harming long-term prospects of youths, and are creating substantial economic costs to society.

“Existing treatments are not fully addressing these problems because they focus on a subset of mental health problems.They are limited in efficacy, and are not provided to most youth in need”, explains Principal Investigator of the project, Assistant Professor Johan Bjureberg at Karolinska Institutet.

Transdiagnostic digital treatments that address mechanisms underlying mental health problems, such as emotion regulation, have been called for to address these problems.

Scalable intervention

The overall objective of the project is to build an evidence base for a novel highly scalable transdiagnostic intervention called the Primary care Online Emotion-regulation Treatment (POET) for youth seeking treatment for mental health problems.

The researchers will include 388 boys and girls aged 12-17 years and their parents in a randomized controlled trial comparing a 6-week POET to a 6-week active control condition.

Both interventions will be delivered in blended format combining online therapist-supported treatment modules with a video-link session.

“The primary study aims are to examine the effects of POET vs active control at post-treatment, 3-, and 12-month follow-up on mental health problems, emotion regulation, and to test whether changes in emotion regulation mediates reduction in mental health problems during treatment,” said Bjureberg.

“Secondarily we will evaluate if POET is cost-effective, test if POET is more effective for some individuals than others, and test whether there are detectable effects on distal outcomes 12 to 60 months post treatment”.

According to Bjureberg, the proposed project would be one of the largest transdiagnostic emotion regulation intervention study for youth to date, with a design that will allow the researchers to address some of the most important questions in the field of affective psychology, child and adolescent mental health, and psychiatry research.

Involving patients

Former patients (now young adults) and patient-relatives will be members of the steering group for the study and will provide the project with a user perspective during planning, realization, and dissemination of results.

An advisory board including former patients and clinicians will review all treatment material. Feedback from end users will be continuously integrated in the development of the program including collecting qualitative data on satisfaction and utility experience within the clinical trials.

“The broad long-term goal is also to provide politicians with estimates of cost-effectiveness, provide evidence for whom and under what circumstances the treatment is efficacious, and show how a brief treatment provided in youth may change the trajectory into young adulthood, preventing important adverse outcome,” said Bjureberg.

Thorough process

“It is with great pleasure Kavli Trust has awarded Johan Bjureberg and his team at Karolinska Institutet funding for the POET study. Interventions that can strengthen the mental health of children and young people are one Kavli Trust’s priority areas. By supporting research in the field, we hope to be able to contribute to children and young people having access to knowledge-based, effective treatment,” says General Manager of Kavli Trust, Inger Elise Iversen.

The POET project was chosen as one out of three projects awarded funding from The Kavli Trust Programme for Health Research in 2021, among a total of 43 project proposals.

“This study is very well designed, and it can provide important knowledge about the effect of online emotion-regulation treatment”, said senior advisor in The Kavli Trust Programme on Health Research, Ida Svege.