JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Depression is one of the leading causes of disability in youth, with a global economic burden of >$210 billion annually. However, up to 70% of youth with depression do not receive services. Even among those who do access treatment, 30-65% fail to respond and many drop-out prematurely, creating a need for more potent, accessible interventions. Accordingly, the goal of this project is to test the acceptability and efficacy of a novel, single-session, virtual reality (VR) depression intervention—the VR Personality Project—teaching growth mindset: the belief that personal attributes are malleable rather than fixed. In a previous trial, a single-session web-based growth mindset intervention significantly reduced depressive symptoms in high symptom-adolescents; however, this intervention did not benefit adolescents uniformly. For instance, the intervention significantly reduced depressive symptoms in adolescents who reported improvements in perceived control, but not in adolescents who reported no significant post-intervention increases in perceived control. The VR Personality Project was designed to systematically target and increase adolescents’ perceived control by offering a more immersive, engaging, user-directed intervention experience than the web-based intervention can provide. By targeting an identified predictor of intervention response, the VR Personality Project may be lead to larger reductions in depressive symptoms than existing web-based mindset interventions. To test this possibility, adolescents with elevated depressive symptoms (N=159; ages 12-16) will be randomized to one of three intervention conditions: the VR Personality Project; a web-based growth mindset intervention; or an active, web-based control. All programs are approximately 30 minutes in length and self-administered by youth. Adolescents and parents will report on youths’ depressive symptoms at pre-intervention and 3- and 9-month follow-up, and adolescents will report their levels of perceived control and related domains of functioning at pre- and post-intervention and 3- and 9-month follow-up. We predict that the VR and web-based mindset interventions will both lead to larger reductions in adolescent depressive symptoms than the control intervention across the follow-up period. We also predict that the VR-based intervention will lead to larger reductions in depressive symptoms than the web-based mindset intervention, and that these symptom reductions will be mediated by increases in adolescents’ perceived control from pre- to post-intervention. Results may suggest a novel, VR-based approach to reducing for adolescent depressive symptoms: One that is relatively affordable (< $200 for a commercially-available VR headset, a fraction of the cost of long-term psychotherapy) and potentially engaging to adolescents experiencing mood-related distress.