Adolescent talking therapies for low-resource settings: asking what works for whom, how, and in what circumstances

Background: Mental disorders in adolescence can have devastating short and long-term effects on health and development. Depression is a common mental disorder accounting for 11% of total years lived with disability among adolescents aged 15-19 and 7% among those aged 10-14. Ninety percent of adolescents live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) yet there is limited availability of mental health care in these settings. One approach to address this is to adapt and test psychological interventions developed in high-income countries. Findings from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) demonstrate the benefits of these interventions but provide limited information about how exactly they bring about change. In order to replicate the benefits of psychological interventions across contexts, we need to know how these interventions work, for whom, under what circumstances, and over what time frame. These are questions that remain unanswered in both high- and low-income settings, and we need new methods to answer them. Realist RCTs are a novel way to estimate intervention effects with minimal bias whilst also theorizing and testing intervention mechanisms and how intervention effects differ by population and setting. In this context, we aim to test the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of delivering Interpersonal Therapy in secondary schools of the Chitwan district.

Objectives:

• To assess the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of delivering Interpersonal Therapy in secondary schools of the Chitwan district.
• To test the hypotheses to see which mechanisms of IPT under what conditions work for whom

Implementation area: Selected municipalities of the Chitwan district

Time frame: 2023 – 2027 

Supported by: UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)