JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Adolescence is associated with increased risk for emotional and behavioral difficulties, including internalizing symptoms, externalizing behaviors, and substance-related risk-taking. Emotion regulation plays a central role in these difficulties and is a key target for preventive interventions. Although schools are an important setting for youth mental health promotion, many school-based programs do not systematically identify different patterns of vulnerability or adapt intervention intensity accordingly.

Objective:

The EASY (Emotional Awareness for Supporting Youths) project aims to identify data-driven vulnerability profiles among adolescents attending Italian secondary schools, to characterize these profiles through the assessment of momentary emotional experience in daily life, and to evaluate 2 modular online preventive interventions, one delivered to adolescents (STAY) and one delivered to parents (eCONNECT), including whether baseline vulnerability profiles moderate intervention effects.

Methods:

EASY is a 2-phase study. Phase 1 involves approximately 1200 adolescents and includes baseline self-report measures of emotion regulation difficulties, behavioral problems, and risk-taking behaviors, followed by a 7-day ecological momentary assessment (ESM) protocol delivered through the MindSampler smartphone application, with 5 semirandom prompts per day. Latent profile analysis will identify vulnerability profiles, which will be characterized using person-level ESM indicators of affect, perceived emotional control, emotion regulation strategies, and mentalizing efforts. Phase 2 is a quasi-experimental cluster-controlled trial involving a subsample of Phase 1 participants, with approximately 80 to 100 participants per condition. Classes will be allocated, on the basis of school and organizational availability, to STAY, an adolescent-focused online group intervention targeting emotion regulation; eCONNECT, a parent-focused online group intervention targeting attachment security and parenting, with no direct intervention for adolescents; or a no-intervention control condition. Outcomes will be assessed at pre-intervention (T1), post-intervention (T2), and 8-week follow-up (T3). Mixed-effects models accounting for clustering and baseline differences will evaluate intervention effects and their moderation by baseline vulnerability profiles.

Results:

The project is funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research under the PRIN 2022 program (Prot. 2022J8EPN3). The protocol described here corresponds to the version updated in January 2026. Data collection started in December 2025. As of August 2026, Phase 1 enrollment had been completed, with 1200 adolescents recruited, and Phase 2 intervention delivery and follow-up assessments were ongoing. No outcome analyses have been conducted. Data collection is expected to be completed by the end of February 2027.

Conclusions:

EASY aims to advance school-based prevention by linking adolescents' everyday emotional experiences with data-driven vulnerability patterns and by testing whether different profiles respond differently to adolescent-focused and parent-focused interventions. Findings may inform more targeted and scalable prevention strategies in school settings. Clinical Trial: Protocol documentation, study materials, and reproducible analysis scripts are deposited on the Open Science Framework (osf.io/p245a).