To be eligible for the program you need to be of high school age and be experiencing both anxiety and depression.
The program consists of 8 online modules that are completed over 8 weeks.
The program is free, however given that it is a research study, we ask that you participate in a number of assessments. The assessments allow us to evaluate the effectiveness of the program.
The assessment involves an interview over the phone as well as a battery of questionnaires. Both the interview and the questionnaires give us information about the problems that you have been experiencing. In particular, we will ask about your feelings, thoughts and behaviours when you are feeling stressed or down. The interview takes approximately 2 hours to complete.
All the information provided is confidential. Only the therapist working with you and the supervisors on the program will have access to your answers. In the overall evaluation of the program, all participants will be pooled together and no individual will be identified.
Parents provide some support throughout the program but the level of support will depend on the individual adolescent. We look at age, level of independence, and the wishes of the person in deciding how much a parent should be involved in therapy.
If you are eligible to participate in the program you will be randomly allocated to either a) immediate treatment, or b) treatment following 8 weeks on a wait-list. If you are allocated to immediate treatment, you will commence therapy straight away, including online material and therapist phone calls. If you are allocated to treatment following wait-list, you will be asked to wait for 8 weeks before commencing the program.
During the course of the program it is important that no other treatment is commenced, as this will make the program difficult to evaluate. Therefore we ask that no other psychological treatment is used while you are completing the program.
If you are on medication for anxiety or depression, you are still able to participate in the program. We ask that the dosage be kept constant throughout the duration of the treatment so that we can still effectively evaluate the program.
After you have completed the 8-week program, we will contact you again 3 months later to complete an additional assessment. The purpose of the assessment is to check how you are going, to provide additional support if needed, and to determine the impact of treatment over time.
You are free to withdraw from the program at any time without consequence, and without affecting your relationship with the Centre for Emotional Health.