Promotion of Self-help Strategies for Depression

Orygen

Status and phase: Completed; Phase 2; Phase 1

Conditions: Depression; Depressive Disorder

Treatments: Behavioral: Mood Memo emails

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01399502

0931313

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of health promotion emails for depression. It is hypothesised that emails containing self-help advice will improve depression symptoms more than emails containing information about depression.

Full description

Depression symptoms are commonly experienced and disrupt day-to-day life. Increasing depression literacy and the use of effective self-help methods could improve depression across the community. The internet is an ideal promotional medium for health messages, because it is often used to search for information about mental health issues, and health messages can be widely disseminated at little cost. An email campaign could be a low-cost approach to improving self-help behavior and knowledge about depression in adults with depression symptoms.

Enrollment: 1,736 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• Access to the internet at least once per week
• Resident of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, USA

Exclusion Criteria:

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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1,736 participants in 2 patient groups, including a placebo group

Self-help advice

Active Comparator group

Description:

Each email will contain a self-help strategy for coping with depressive symptoms. The email will contain information about why the strategy will be effective, tips for implementing the strategy and overcoming barriers, and how to set a goal to implement the strategy. Strategies are based on previous research published by the trial co-ordinators.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Mood Memo emails

Depression information

Placebo Comparator group

Description:

Each email will contain different information about depression, such as symptoms, risk factors, prevalence.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Mood Memo emails