SOVA Ambassadors Community Setting

The purpose of this study is to examine participant adherence to intervention feasibility and acceptability of intervention, attention control, and implementation strategy.

Study Overview

• Status: Terminated
• Conditions: Depression
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: SOVA Ambassador; Behavioral: Self-Reflection

Detailed Description

A 1:1 pilot randomized controlled trial of the SOVA Peer Ambassador Program compared to attention control: brief psychoeducational independent assignments (i.e. reading SOVA articles and responding to open-ended questions without content creation and without peer interaction) (N=40) and evaluate feasibility of implementation strategy.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 12
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Pennsylvania
    • Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, 15213
      • University of Pittsburgh

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Ages 14 to 21

Can read and understand English

Has completed 6th grade

Scores at least 5 or greater on the PHQ-8 (depression) and/or 5 or greater on GAD-7 (anxiety) consistent with at least mild symptoms

Exclusion Criteria:

• no access to internet

Has an intellectual or physical ability which prohibits reading text on the internet (can participate if able to use with assistance, e.g. can use text to speech)

No active email account (can participate if plans to create one)

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: SOVA Peer Ambassador Program; Participants will be given login information for a website sova.pitt.edu. They will be given weekly emails notifications about new posts. The participant will be onboarded as a blogging peer ambassador. The participant will be expected to contribute content to the website at least once a month by; writing a blog article; sending information (de-identified photo or video or music) to post• If they choose this option they will be encouraged to submit their own photo, video, or music to the website or they will be encouraged to write a response to a photo, video, or music piece.; being interviewed by the RA and then the RA "ghostwriting" an article about the interview which they pre-approve prior to it being posted.	Behavioral: SOVA Ambassador; The SOVA Ambassador intervention includes: adolescents will have access to the website specifically for adolescents: sova.pitt.edu These anonymous websites aim to: (1) challenge negative health beliefs and increase depression/anxiety knowledge through daily blog posts enhanced with peer commentary; (2) promote social support through online peer interactions; and (3) encourage parent-adolescent mental health communication through same day blog posts with questions for discussion. Participants that receive this intervention will contribute monthly articles and regular comments.
Active Comparator: attention control: brief psychoeducational independent assignments; Participants will be sent a REDCap form where they will receive a link to a SOVA article to read and a question for them to answer about what they read that will be accessible only to the study team. They will be asked to do this a couple times a month and will be reminded about their participation.	Behavioral: Self-Reflection; Participant will be given an article from the sova.pitt.edu website and a prompt to write about privately.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Feasibility of Intervention	Average number of articles written per participant; Research team extract data from websites and observation notes	12 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Feasibility of Control Arm	Average number of submissions to questions on the REDCap form per participant in the Attention control arm Research team extract data from REDCap	12 weeks
Acceptability of Intervention	Acceptability of Intervention Measure; Open-ended question (asked the SOVA Website meets my approval)	12 weeks
Acceptability of Implementation Strategy	Open-ended question: How acceptable to you was it to participate in this program? (referring to mental health program used as an implementation strategy) asked at baseline	Baseline
Acceptability of Randomization	Single item open-ended question inquiring how acceptable it was to being randomly chosen to participate in the SOVA Ambassador arm versus the control arm	12 weeks
Depression Severity	Patient Health Questionnaire-9 measures depression severity a higher score indicating greater severity. The PHQ-8 version was used with the 9th item omitted, score range is 0 to 24	6 weeks
Depression Severity	Patient Health Questionnaire-9 measures depression severity a higher score indicating greater severity. The PHQ-8 version was used with the 9th item omitted, score range is 0 to 24	12 weeks
Anxiety Severity	Generalized Anxiety Disorders 7-item Questionnaire measures extent of anxiety symptoms. The total score ranges from 0 to 21 with a higher score indicating greater severity.	6 weeks
Anxiety Severity	Generalized Anxiety Disorders 7-item Questionnaire measures extent of anxiety symptoms. The total score ranges from 0 to 21 with a higher score indicating greater severity.	12 weeks
Resilience/Positive Youth Development	Positive Youth Development will be assessed using The Positive Youth Development Very Short Form (PYD-VSF). The confidence subscale is reported which has 3 items with a total score ranging from 3 to 13 (α = 0.78), a higher score associated with a greater level of confidence.	6 weeks
Resilience/Positive Youth Development	Positive Youth Development will be assessed using The Positive Youth Development Very Short Form (PYD-VSF). The confidence subscale is reported which has 3 items with a total score ranging from 3 to 13 (α = 0.78), a higher score associated with a greater level of confidence.	12 weeks
Self-Esteem	The 10-item Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) (α = 0.93) will be administered to assess participants' self-esteem. Items on the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale ask about self-worth and self-acceptance and are scored using a four-point scale from 1 = strongly disagree, to 4 = strongly agree. The scores on each question are summed together, with higher scores indicating greater self-esteem. Scores range from 10-40 with a higher score equating to higher self esteem.	6 weeks
Self-Esteem	The 10-item Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) (α = 0.93) will be administered to assess participants' self-esteem. Items on the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale ask about self-worth and self-acceptance and are scored using a four-point scale from 1 = strongly disagree, to 4 = strongly agree. The scores on each question are summed together, with higher scores indicating greater self-esteem. Scores range from 10-40	12 weeks
Emotional Self-Efficacy	Emotional self-efficacy will be assessed using The Mental Health Self-Efficacy Scale (MHSES) (α = 0.82) Clarke 2014. MHSES was developed according to guidelines by Bandura as to how to create self-efficacy questionnaires (Bandura, 2006) . The questionnaire contains six items asking about the participant's confidence level in performing mental health self-care behaviors. Scoring of the MHSES is based on a 10-point Likert scale ranging from 1 ("Not at all confident") to 10 ("Totally confident"). Scores are a mean score ranging 1-10 with higher scores meaning higher mental health self-efficacy.	6 weeks
Emotional Self-Efficacy	Emotional self-efficacy will be assessed using The Mental Health Self-Efficacy Scale (MHSES) (α = 0.82) Clarke 2014. MHSES was developed according to guidelines by Bandura as to how to create self-efficacy questionnaires (Bandura, 2006) . The questionnaire contains six items asking about the participant's confidence level in performing mental health self-care behaviors. Scoring of the MHSES is based on a 10-point Likert scale ranging from 1 ("Not at all confident") to 10 ("Totally confident"). Scores are a mean score ranging 1-10 with higher scores meaning higher mental health self-efficacy.	12 weeks
Social Support	The Medical Outcome Study Social Support Scale measures types of social support. Higher levels associated with greater support. We will use the emotional/informational subscale from this report and calculate the mean per item score on a range of 1 to 5.	6 weeks
Social Support	The Medical Outcome Study Social Support Scale measures types of social support. Higher levels associated with greater support. We will use the emotional/informational subscale from this report and calculate the mean per item score on a range of 1 to 5.	12 weeks
Social Isolation	The revised UCLA Loneliness Scale will be administered to all participants to measure social isolation (α = 0.93). This 20-item scale measures one's feelings of social isolation and is scored using a four-point scale (1 = never; 2 = rarely; 3 = sometimes; 4 = often) . Score range 20-80, higher score is higher isolation.	6 weeks
Social Isolation	The revised UCLA Loneliness Scale will be administered to all participants to measure social isolation (α = 0.93). This 20-item scale measures one's feelings of social isolation and is scored using a four-point scale (1 = never; 2 = rarely; 3 = sometimes; 4 = often) . Score range 20-80, higher score is higher isolation.	12 weeks
Stigma	The Depression Stigma Scale measures stigmatizing attitudes toward depression treatment. It is a continuous measure and the total score ranges from 0-36. There are two subscales: the personal stigma subscale which totals 0-18 and the perceived stigma subscale which totals 0-18. These two are summed for the total stigma score. A higher score indicates a worse outcome.	6 weeks
Stigma	The Depression Stigma Scale measures stigmatizing attitudes toward depression treatment. It is a continuous measure and the total score ranges from 0-36. There are two subscales: the personal stigma subscale which totals 0-18 and the perceived stigma subscale which totals 0-18. These two are summed for the total stigma score. A higher score indicates a worse outcome.	12 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Pittsburgh
• Collaborators: National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Ana Radovic, MD, MSc, University of Pittsburgh

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): October 25, 2023
• Primary Completion (Actual): November 22, 2024
• Study Completion (Actual): November 22, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 27, 2023
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 27, 2023
• First Posted (Actual): October 4, 2023

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimated): January 16, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 24, 2025
• Last Verified: December 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Adolescent; eHealth; Mental Health Services; Social Support; Social Media; Primary Healthcare; Adolescent Medicine; Online Systems
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavioral Symptoms; Behavior; Depression
• Other Study ID Numbers: STUDY23020021; R21MD016143 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: Trial outcome data can be accessed by contacting the study principal investigator.
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: STUDY_PROTOCOL; SAP; ICF; CSR

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No