Dance-movement Therapy in the Treatment of Adolescent Depression (DMT)

December 19, 2025 updated by: Riikka Valjakka, Helsinki University Central Hospital

Study Protocol for a Randomised Controlled Trial of Dance-movement Therapy for Adolescents With Depression

The aim of this research is to measure the effectiveness of Dance movement therapy in the treatment of adolescent depression.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Research will start by recruitment of 140 patients (aged 13-17 years) from youth psychiatric outpatient clinic in Helsinki University Central hospital. They will be randomized to two groups. The intervention group will attend Dance movement therapy (DMT) for 12 weeks and the control group is getting treatment as usual (TAU). The outcome will be measured with self-report questionnaires and interviews measuring symptoms of depression and body image. Outcome measurements will be done before intervention, after intervention and 3 months after intervention has finished. The research will start in September 2022 and continue until the end of 2027. The results will be published in medical scientific journals during the year 2027

.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

140

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 Contact

Study Contact Backup

Study Locations

  • Finland
      • Helsinki, Finland, 00029
        • Recruiting
        • Helsinki university hospital
        • Contact:
        • Contact:
        • Principal Investigator:
          • Riikka Valjakka, MD
      • Helsinki, Finland, 00099
        • Recruiting
        • Adolecent mental health services, Helsinki
        • Principal Investigator:
          • Riikka Valjakka, MD
        • Contact:
        • Contact:

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

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Diagnosis of medium or severe depression; BDI 16 points or more. At least 4/9 symptoms of depression in K-SADS-PL interview

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Acute psychosis, psychotic depression, personality disorder, severe anorexia, substance misuse that is on a critical level

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: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Dance movement therapy
A group of 5-6 patients is recieving Dance movement group therapy once a week for 12 weeks
Other: Dance movement therapy
A group therapy model for treatment of depression by dance movement therapist. Study consist of 12 therapy sessions, each session lasting 1hour 15minutes. There will be 6 patients in each group.
No Intervention: Treatment as usual
Treatment as usual in youth psychiatric outpatient clinic

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-21)
Time Frame: baseline, 8 weeks, 12 weeks, 6 months
The self-report questionnaire to assess depressive symptoms, minimum 0 points, maximum 63 points, more severe depression with higher scores
baseline, 8 weeks, 12 weeks, 6 months
Young Person's Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation (YP-Core)
Time Frame: baseline, 8 weeks, 12 weeks, 6 months
The self- report questionnaire to measure depressive and overal symptoms in youth, minimum 0 points, maximum 40 points, or median of scores, higher scores indicating more symptoms
baseline, 8 weeks, 12 weeks, 6 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Adolescent Depression Rating Scale (ADRS)
Time Frame: baseline, 12 weeks, 6 months
Clinical interview to measure depressive symptoms in youth, minimum 0 and maximum 60 points, highers scores indicating more severe depression
baseline, 12 weeks, 6 months
Body Image assessment
Time Frame: baseline, 12 weeks, 6 months
Self-report questionnaire to assess body image/experience, 11 items with minimum 11 and maxomum 77 points, a qualitative scale
baseline, 12 weeks, 6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Helsinki University Central Hospital

Collaborators

University of Helsinki
Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare
Finnish Medical Foundation

Investigators

  • Study Chair: Mauri Marttunen, Prof emer, University of Helsinki
  • Study Director: Henna Haravuori, Docent, Finnish Institue for Health and Welfare

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

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)

October 1, 2022

Primary Completion (Estimated)

September 30, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

May 30, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 29, 2022

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 7, 2025

First Posted (Estimated)

December 19, 2025

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

December 26, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 19, 2025

Last Verified

December 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • HUS/391/2021

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

IPD Plan Description

Individual deidentified participant data will not be shared due to legal and ethical restrictions and institute policy; other documents will be available (e.g., study protocol, statistical analysis plan, etc.); data (means, distributions etc.) for meta-analyses and like will be provided, data will be available earliest 2027 and according to study's institutional permissions; for researchers in esteemed institutes, with safe digital methods.

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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