Abstract
Background: Depression is a prevalent disorder with a peak rate of onset in young adulthood from 18 to 25 years. To date, no review has systematically assessed the effectiveness of programs that aim to reduce depressive symptoms or diagnosis of depression in young adults. Method: A systematic search was performed in Cochrane, PubMed, PsycINFO and EMBASE. We performed a random-effects meta-analysis of the randomized controlled studies that compared an intervention for young adults (aged 18–25) without a diagnosis or history of depression and a control condition. Comparisons between intervention and control group outcomes were carried out at the post-intervention time point. We also compared intervention and control group outcomes at later follow-up time points where data were available. Results: Twenty-six randomized controlled trials among 2865 young adults were included in the analysis. The pooled effect size of the interventions versus control at post-intervention was g = 0.37 (95% CI: 0.28–0.47, NNT = 9) and heterogeneity was moderate I2= 36 (95% CI: 11–64). There were no significant effects in terms of the type of delivery, focus of study, type of control, or type of support within the interventions. Limitations: The authors were unable to assess the effects of interventions on the onset of depression as none of the included studies measured incidence. The risk of bias was high in most studies (81%). Only one study included a follow-up of more than a year. Demographic factors were inconsistently reported in the included articles. Conclusion: While it was not possible to investigate the effects of interventions on depression incidence, some evidence was found for the effectiveness of preventative interventions in reducing depressive symptoms in young adults. Future research should address limitations of the current evidence base to allow stronger conclusions to be drawn.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 18-29 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Journal of Affective Disorders |
| Volume | 239 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 15 Oct 2018 |
Funding
This work was supported by the Friends of the Foundation who provided financial support for the open access publishing fee as well as the software. The funding source was not in the collection, analysis and interpretation of the data nor was it involved in the writing of the manuscript or the decision to submit it for publication. All authors had full access to the data in the study. This work was partially supported by the Friends of the Mental Health Foundation (philanthropy group). We thank the current and past members of the research team, Victoria Zamperioni, Jade Yap, Una Foye, Catherine Moore, and Alicia Nunez-Segovia. We also thank Benjamin McElwee for his contributions during the conception phase of this paper.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Friends of the Foundation | |
| Friends of the Mental Health Foundation |
Keywords
- Depression
- Meta-analysis
- Prevention
- Psychological health
- Randomized controlled trial
- Young adult
