DepressionNCT05476237
Adolescent Depression Screening and Treatment in Mozambican Primary Care
A study testing Group Interpersonal Therapy for Adolescents (IPT-AG) and Treatment as Usual (TAU) in people with Depression and Adolescent Behavior, run by Columbia University at 4 sites in Mozambique.
Trial summary
This is a cluster-randomized pilot trial of depression screening and treatment implementation at four Youth-friendly Health Services (YFHS) in primary care clinics, two in Maputo City and two in Maputo Province. Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 12 to 65 years
- Conditions the study is for
- Depression, Adolescent Behavior
- What is being tested?
- Group Interpersonal Therapy for Adolescents (IPT-AG) and Treatment as Usual (TAU)
- Type of treatment
- Lifestyle or therapy programme
- Could I receive a placebo?
- No, everyone receives an active treatment
- How many people
- 95 participants
- Where
- 4 sitesMozambique
- Study dates
- 1 Apr 2023to 27 Sep 2024
- Phase
- Interventional
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages 12 to 65 years
- All sexes
- No healthy volunteers
- Child, Adult, Older adult
Who may be able to join
- Providers:
- IPT-AG Arm: YFHS staff will be included in the study if they (a) conduct screening for depression and/or group IPT-AG and (b) provide consent to participate in the study.
- TAU Arm: YFHS staff will be included in the study if they (a) provide referrals for adolescents suspected of having mental illness or seeking mental health services and (b) provide consent to participate in the study. Treatment providers (Psychiatric Technicians and psychologists) will be included in the study if they (a) treat adolescents referred from participating YFHS for depression and (b) provide consent to participate in the study.
- Patients: In both study arms, adolescents attending one of the four study YFHS will be included in the study if they:
- are between the ages of 12-19 years;
- screen positive for depression;
- provide informed consent (ages 16 -19) or if their guardian provides informed consent and they provide assent (if ages 12-15).
- Study centers: must be clinics that have YFHS.
Who cannot join
- In both study arms, adolescents will be excluded if they:
- are unable to participate in treatment due to acute illness; and/or
- are unable to communicate sufficiently in Portuguese to answer inclusion questions.
Trial locations and contacts
4 sites in 1 country.
Mozambique4 sites
Centro de Saude Alto Mae
Maputo
Centro de Saude Chamaculo
Maputo
Centro de Saude Magoanine Tendas
Maputo
Centro de Saude Primeiro de Maio
Maputo
About this study
Official title: Pilot Implementation of Depression Screening and Treatment for Adolescents in Mozambican Primary Care
This is a cluster-randomized pilot trial of depression screening and treatment implementation at four Youth-friendly Health Services (YFHS) in primary care clinics, two in Maputo City and two in Maputo Province. YFHS will be stratified by urbanicity, such that one YFHS in Maputo City and one YFHS in Maputo Province will be randomized to interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT)-A and the other YFHS in each location with be randomized to treatment as usual (TAU).
Read the detailed description
Mental disorders are the leading cause of disability among adolescents worldwide, but only a very small minority, mostly in high-resource settings, have access to mental health care. The investigators' work is focused on understanding how to increase access to mental health care for adolescents in low-resource settings. In Mozambique, where this work is based, there are just 15 psychiatrists and 180 psychologists to serve its population of 29 million. In collaboration with local stakeholders, including governmental policymakers and primary care providers, the investigators developed a plan to implement care for adolescent depression in primary care settings. The investigators now aim to examine changes in adolescent depression and acceptability of primary care-based mental health services compared to treatment as usual.
- Conditions
- Depression, Adolescent Behavior
- Being tested
- Group Interpersonal Therapy for Adolescents (IPT-AG), Treatment as Usual (TAU)
- Keywords
- adolescent depression
- Medical subject headings
- Depression, Adolescent Behavior
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
Group Interpersonal Therapy for Adolescents (IPT-AG)Behavioural
IPT-AG is a ten session, group therapy for adolescents. Each group contains 6-8 adolescents who attend weekly sessions together. The goals of IPT-AG are: 1) to reduce depression symptoms, and 2) to improve interpersonal relationships. Another aim of the group format is to increase adolescents' experience with positive social interactions and to reduce social isolation.
Treatment as Usual (TAU)Behavioural
Also called TAU
Adolescents will be administered unstructured psychotherapy in individual sessions with a trained mental health specialist (i.e., psychologist or psychiatric technician).
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| TAU | Active comparator | Psychologists or PsyTechs in mental health services of primary care clinics will provide individual psychotherapy to depressed adolescents in the TAU arm. Local mental health professionals providing depression treatment in the TAU arm will not have been trained on IPT for adults or adolescents. Also, the two Ministry of Health psychologists trained as trainers of IPT-AG will not provide treatment in the TAU Arm. Receives: Behavioral: Treatment as Usual (TAU) |
| IPT-AG | Experimental | Group IPT-AG will be facilitated by the trained providers at each YFHS using the IPT-AG manual adapted to the Mozambican context. Adolescents will participate in 12 weekly sessions. The first and last sessions will be one-on-one with the provider. The first session is used for the participant and provider to develop a treatment plan and the last session is to prepare for treatment termination. All other sessions will be conducted in groups of 6-8 adolescents. Receives: Behavioral: Group Interpersonal Therapy for Adolescents (IPT-AG) |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Change in PHQ-A Score From Baseline to 6 Months Post-intervention
The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-A is a 9-item severity measure of depression for adolescents adapted from the PHQ-9. Questions ask how often an adolescent has been bothered by different depression symptoms in the past week, and responses of "not at all," "several days," "more than half the days," and "nearly every day" are given scores of 0 to 3. A total score is calculated by summing the value of all items and ranges from 0 (better outcome) to 27 (worse outcome). The change in PHQ-A score will be reported as a percent change.
Measured: Baseline, 6 months
IPT-AG Fidelity
The Group IPT-AG Fidelity Checklist is a 14-item scale that measures provider fidelity to group interpersonal therapy for adolescents. Providers are scored for superior (1), satisfactory (2), or needs improvement (3) adherence to each item on the checklist, which each represent and essential element of treatment (e.g., gives hope that depression is treatable, links depression to interpersonal problems). The score of the 14-items is averaged to compute the IPT-AG Fidelity rating (1=superior, 2=satisfactory, 3=needs improvement). The total score range is 1 to 14, with a lower score indicating a better outcome. This outcome was only assessed in participants who received the study intervention.
Measured: 6 months post-intervention
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted27 Jul 2022
- Study start1 Apr 2023
- Primary completion16 May 2024
- Study completion27 Sep 2024
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Posted resultsParticipant flow, outcome measures and adverse events reported by the sponsor.
- Other trials for DepressionStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- More trials run by Columbia UniversityThe sponsor's other registered studies.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase N/A
- Primary purpose
- Health services research
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Masking
- Single blind
- Who is masked
- Participant
- Enrolment
- 95 participants (actual)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- Columbia University
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
- Responsible party
- Principal investigator, Kathryn L. Lovero, PhD, Columbia University
- Investigators
- Kathryn Lovero, PhD, Principal investigator, Columbia University
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT05476237
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- AAAU3060
- Other IDs
- K01MH120258
- Status last verified
- Feb 2026
- First submitted
- 25 Jul 2022
- Last updated
- 27 Feb 2026
- Results posted
- Yes, on ClinicalTrials.gov
- Data monitoring committee
- Yes
- FDA-regulated drug
- No
- FDA-regulated device
- No
- Individual data sharing
- No