ICALM: Interpersonal Counselling for Adolescent Low Mood
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Interpersonal Counselling for Adolescent Depression delivered by Youth Mental Health Workers without Core Professional Training: A Feasibility Randomised Controlled Trial
IRAS ID
268403
Contact name
Jonathan Wilson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust R&D Department
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 13 days
Research summary
Interpersonal Counselling (IPC) is a talking therapy for depression designed to be provided by staff who are not qualified mental health professionals. A version of IPC designed for young people (IPC for Adolescents: IPC-A) has been developed. Early work suggests that young people like IPC-A and it leads to reduced depressive symptoms. However, we don’t know whether IPC-A is better at reducing depression symptoms than the normal support provided by non-specialist services, so want to do a study to find out. Before we can do this, we need to run a smaller ‘feasibility’ study to answer questions about whether a larger study would be possible.
This feasibility study will involve training local authority and charity staff members (without formal mental health qualifications) as IPC-A therapists. Young people aged 12-18 years seeking help for depression symptoms will be invited to take part in the research. If they consent, they will be screened to ensure the study is suitable for them.
Young people who consent will be randomly allocated to receive either IPC-A or the support young people currently receive (“treatment as usual”) because, in the future trial, we will need to do this to test in a fair way whether IPC-A is better than the support young people currently receive. All participants will be invited to meet with a researcher to answer questions about their mental health and relationships, and will be asked to complete questionnaires regularly during the study. Some participants will also be invited to take part in interviews to help us understand their experience of taking part. The results of the study will be shared with young people, participating services and commissioners, and will be used to design a future study testing whether IPC-A delivered by this staff group is better than usual support at reducing young people’s depressive symptoms.
REC name
East of England - Cambridge South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/EE/0300
Date of REC Opinion
13 Dec 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion