Evaluation of a Website to Improve Depression Literacy in Parents of Healthy Adolescents

June 29, 2022 updated by: Ellen Greimel, Ludwig-Maximilians - University of Munich

Evaluating the Efficacy and the Acceptability of the Website "Ich Bin Alles" to Improve Depression Literacy in Parents of Healthy Adolescents Without a Mental Health Condition

The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy and acceptability of the website "ich bin alles" (https://www.ich-bin-alles.de/) to improve depression literacy (knowledge about depression, which aid the recognition, treatment or prevention of depression) in parents of healthy adolescents without a mental health condition. The investigators will examine whether the website improves depression literacy in parents of adolescents aged 12 to 18 years without a mental health condition. The investigators will also assess the acceptability of the website among the participants.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Few young people with major depressive disorder seek professional treatment in time. Concerns about social stigma, confidentiality, and limited knowledge about mental health conditions, such as depression, or mental health services are some of the main barriers to seek treatment. Increasing parents' knowledge about and attitude towards depression and mental health in childhood and adolescence is important to sensitize parents and increase their awareness towards depression and mental health in their children. These aspects might play a crucial role for parents to support their children's mental health, notice potential depressive symptoms in their children, react appropriately and take action if necessary. To address these issues and to contribute to knowledge gain in this target group, we developed an evidence-based website "ich bin alles" with two separate sub-websites for (1) adolescents (https://www.ich-bin-alles.de/) and (2) parents (…../eltern) to improve depression literacy in these groups.

To improve depression literacy in parents, the website provides general information for parents about depression in childhood and adolescence (e.g., symptoms, causes, course and treatment of depression). Furthermore, the website provides information about strategies for parents on how to support their children if they are affected by depression and on appropriate prevention strategies; i.e., strategies for promoting mental health (e.g., providing a healthy environment, reducing stress, undertaking positive activities, positive parenting), which are meant to serve as an addition to professional treatments of depression or to promote mental health in adolescents.

Target groups of the website are parents of adolescents aged 12 to 18 years with a history of depression, as well as parents of healthy adolescents aged 12 to 18 years. Easy access to information about depression would make early recognition of depression more likely and engage parents to help their children to seek help for depression.

Since the website targets two different groups, the investigators will evaluate the website accordingly:

Target group 1: Parents of adolescents with a major depressive disorder (acute or remitted) Target group 2: Parents of healthy adolescents (without a mental health condition)

The current study will focus on target group 2. A study focusing on target group 1 can be found in a separately registered clinical trial on clinicaltrials.gov.

The primary aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy and acceptability of the website "ich bin alles" (https://www.ich-bin-alles.de/) to improve depression literacy in parents of healthy adolescents without a mental health condition.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

34

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Germany
    • Bavaria
      • Munich, Bavaria, Germany, 80336
        • Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Munich, Munich, Germany

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • The absence of a current or remitted diagnosis of any psychiatric disorder in the participants' children is assessed using a semi-structured clinical interview: the "Kinder-DIPS". The Kinder-DIPS is a well-established German interview for the diagnosis of a wide range of axis I psychiatric disorders in children from ages six to 18.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Insufficient knowledge of German

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Other
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: General information about depression
Exposure to general information about depression
Other: General information about depression

Before starting the intervention, the participants are told that they will be shown parts of a website about depression. The participants are instructed to carefully attend to the website (e.g., to read the text precisely, to hear attentively to the podcasts and to view carefully the videos and images on the website). The time window spent for the reception of each part of the website are fixed.

The participants will be shown parts of the website regarding general information about depression.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in Depression Literacy - Depression in children and adolescents as psychiatric disorder
Time Frame: Pre-Test, Post-Test (within 2 hours), Follow-Up (Week 4)
This self-designed questionnaire is a self-report inventory to assess knowledge of depression in children and adolescents (frequency and comorbidities, treatment, symptoms, causes and course of depression; 26 items), with higher scores indicating more knowledge of depression as psychiatric disorder. Participants will complete this self-designed questionnaire at pre-test, post-test and follow-up to determine change in knowledge of depression in children and adolescents.
Pre-Test, Post-Test (within 2 hours), Follow-Up (Week 4)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Overall reception of the website
Time Frame: Post-Test (within 2 hours)
The overall reception of the website as measured with a self-designed questionnaire
Post-Test (within 2 hours)
Visual Aesthetics of Websites Inventory Short Version (VisAWI-S)
Time Frame: Post-Test (within 2 hours)
The short version of the Visual Aesthetics of Websites Inventory (VisAWI-S) is self-report inventory to assess the evaluation of the website's design - especially the perceived visual aesthetics. Participants indicate their response to the four items (e.g., "The layout appears professionally designed") on a seven-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 "do not agree at all" to 7 "do fully agree").
Post-Test (within 2 hours)

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Ludwig-Maximilians - University of Munich

Collaborators

Prof. OTTO Beisheim Stiftung (Germany)

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

January 12, 2021

Primary Completion (Actual)

May 2, 2022

Study Completion (Actual)

May 2, 2022

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 1, 2022

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 12, 2022

First Posted (Actual)

April 13, 2022

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

June 30, 2022

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 29, 2022

Last Verified

June 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 20116_2

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

IPD Plan Description

Data in our study contains sensitive participant information, such as sociodemographic information. Since participants could possibly be identified by making our raw data publicly available, ethical principles of protecting participant confidentiality would be breached. Aggregated group data can be made available upon request.

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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