Adolescent Interpersonal Counseling in Primary Care

The demand for prevention and treatment of adolescent depression has rapidly increased over years. A national project to improve treatment of adolescent depression in primary care has taken place in Finland starting 2020. The goal of this prospective observational cohort study is to describe pathways to mental health services in adolescents with depressive symptoms. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Do young people reporting depressive symptoms have equal access to treatment? * How is it best to recognize those adolescents who will benefit from IPC-A? Adolescents who participate in the study will * complete a survey on protective and risk factors of depression three times over 6 months * report possible depressive symptoms every two weeks over 6 months * report whether they needed and received help, motivation for treatment, and benefits and harms from treatment We will also collect * information from one of caretakers with two surveys within 6 month- intervals on their view on adolescent's need for support, strengths and risks, and benefits and harms from treatment where applicable * where applicable, from the professional who provided support after the intervention on their training and competence, as well as content of and response to treatment * register data to estimate overall provision and cost of social welfare and health care services one year preceding the study and over 2 to 10 years after the observation period Researchers will compare an intervention that is new in Finland, adolescent interpersonal counseling (IPC-A), to other treatments of depression, to see if it is equal to or better than other treatments of depression.

NCT Number	NCT06390462
Lead Sponsor	Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare Collaborators: Strategic Research Council of Finland, University of Helsinki, University of Eastern Finland, Tampere University
Conditions	Depressive Symptoms Mild to Moderate in Severity, Major Depressive Disorder
Enrollment	9,000 participants
Start Date	2024-03-25
Primary Completion	2026-05 (estimated)
Study Completion	2039-12 (estimated)
Updated on ClinicalTrials.gov	2025-08-19