Teachers or psychologists: who should facilitate depression prevention programs in schools?

Melanie Wahl,Jill Adelson,Patrick Pössel,Margarete Patak,Martin Hautzinger

doi:10.3390/ijerph110505294

Abstract

The current study evaluates a depression prevention program for adolescents led by psychologists vs. teachers in comparison to a control. The universal school-based prevention program has shown its efficacy in several studies when implemented by psychologists. The current study compares the effects of the program as implemented by teachers versus that implemented by psychologists under real-life conditions. A total of 646 vocational track 8th grade students from Germany participated either in a universal prevention program, led by teachers (n = 207) or psychologists (n = 213), or a teaching-as-usual control condition (n = 226). The design includes baseline, post-intervention, and follow-up (at 6 and 12 months post-intervention). The cognitive-behavioral program includes 10 sessions held in a regular school setting in same-gender groups and is based on the social information-processing model of social competence. Positive intervention effects were found on the change in girls’ depressive symptoms up to 12 months after program delivery when the program was implemented by psychologists. No such effects were found on boys or when program was delivered by teachers. The prevention program can successfully be implemented for girls by psychologists. Further research is needed for explanations of these effects.

Highlights

Onset of major depression often occurs during adolescence [1] and is associated with increased risk of recurrent depressive episodes [2] and other psychopathology into adulthood [3]
The latter group was divided by gender and the two gender homogenous groups for each cohort were randomly assigned to the two experimental conditions by throwing a coin: one group to the program facilitated by psychologists (CB-P), the other to the identical program facilitated by teachers (CB-T)
The depressive symptoms reported by the participants cover almost the entire scale range, indicating that depressive symptoms of all severity levels were represented in the sample

Summary

Introduction

Onset of major depression often occurs during adolescence [1] and is associated with increased risk of recurrent depressive episodes [2] and other psychopathology into adulthood [3]. Finding an effective intervention that prevents depression in adolescents is an important public health priority. Prevention is considered one of the most effective strategies to reduce the burden associated with psychological diseases by the World Health Organisation [4]. Little research has empirically examined the efficiency of prevention programs under real-life conditions. If the positive results of efficacy trials (lead under optimal conditions) can be proven to stand under real-life conditions in effectiveness trials (e.g., integrated into a classroom curriculum/lead by normal school personnel) is the widespread dissemination of such programs justified. The current study is the first that evaluates the effectiveness of a universal depression prevention program delivered by teachers compared to by psychologists under real-life conditions up to 12 months after program delivery

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Discussion

Conclusion