Research digest: looking beyond the IMPACT study to further our understanding of adolescent depression and its treatment

Abstract

This issue of the research digest lists the abstracts of studies from the past seven years that have utilised data compiled as part of the Improving Mood with Psychoanalytic And Cognitive Therapies (IMPACT) randomised controlled trial (RCT), and the IMPACT-My Experience (IMPACT-ME) study that was nested within IMPACT. This ambitious project is the largest clinical trial of psychological therapies for adolescent depression ever to have taken place in Europe and explored the effectiveness of three therapeutic interventions – cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), short-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy (STPP), and brief psychosocial intervention (BPI) – in the treatment and relapse prevention of depression in young people. IMPACT-ME explored young people’s experience of overcoming depression and of treatments they received as part of the IMPACT trial. This Journal is pleased to have published several papers that have used data from the IMPACT study, including one in this issue. However, this edition of the Research Digest focusses on studies