Publications by authors named "Benjamin W Van Voorhees"

Background: Rising rates of adolescent depression in the wake of COVID-19 and a youth mental health crisis highlight the urgent need for accessible mental healthcare and prevention within primary care. Digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) may increase access for underserved populations. However, these interventions are not well studied in adolescents, nor healthcare settings.

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Depression is more common in youth with type 1 diabetes (T1D) compared to youth without diabetes. This study aims to assess the efficacy of Competent Adulthood Transition with Cognitive Humanistic and Interpersonal Teaching (CATCH-IT), an internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) intervention, in adolescents with T1D and depressive symptoms. Adolescents (13 to 17 years old) with T1D and mild (score 5-9) or moderate (score 10-14) depressive symptoms on Patient Health Questionnaire-Adolescent (PHQ-A) screening assessment were recruited to participate and received online access to the CATCH-IT modules for 6 months (requested to complete in 12 weeks).

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With as many as 13% of adolescents diagnosed with depressive disorders each year, prevention of depressive disorders has become a key priority for the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Currently, we have no widely available interventions to prevent these disorders. To address this need, we developed a multi-health system collaboration to develop and evaluate the primary care based technology "behavioral vaccine," Competent Adulthood Transition with Cognitive-Behavioral Humanistic and Interpersonal Therapy (CATCH-IT).

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Article Synopsis
  • Many young people with intellectual or developmental disabilities often feel really sad or anxious, which can make growing up tough.
  • A new plan that combines regular health care with special support for mental health (called B.E.S.T.) might help these teens get better care and feel better as they transition to adulthood.
  • The study will compare how well this new combined care works for 780 teens versus the usual care, looking to see if it helps them feel less sad, improve their health, and be ready for adult life better.
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Article Synopsis
  • Most mental health problems start before age 24, with major depressive disorder being the most common.
  • This study is comparing two programs to help prevent depression in teens: one is group therapy called TEAMS, and the other is a tech-based program called CATCH-IT.
  • The research will look at how well these programs work for teens, their families, and doctors over time, and how they feel about the programs.
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Article Synopsis
  • The study aims to help primary care providers identify and prevent major depression in adolescents by analyzing how they describe their symptoms.
  • Researchers conducted interviews with 37 adolescents aged 13-18 who showed signs of elevated depression, focusing on three main areas: stress sources, expressions of sadness, and help-seeking behaviors.
  • Findings highlight that adolescents from different ethnic backgrounds express similar themes related to subthreshold depression, providing insights that can aid healthcare providers in early identification and support of at-risk youth.
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Approximately 20% of people will experience a depressive episode by adulthood, making adolescence an important developmental target for prevention. CATCH-IT (Competent Adulthood Transition with Cognitive-behavioral, Humanistic, and Interpersonal Training), an online depression prevention intervention, has demonstrated efficacy in preventing depressive episodes among adolescents reporting elevated symptoms. Our study examines the effects of CATCH-IT compared to online health education (HE) on internalizing symptoms in adolescents at risk for depression.

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Background: Two-way interactive text messaging between patient and community health workers (CHWs) through mobile phone SMS (short message service) text messaging is a form of digital health that can potentially enhance patient engagement in young adults and families that have a child with chronic medical conditions such as diabetes mellitus, sickle cell disease, and asthma. These patients have complex needs, and a user-centered way can be useful for designing a tool to address their needs.

Objective: The aim of this study was to utilize the user-centered approach of design thinking to develop a two-way interactive communication SMS text messaging tool for communication between patients or caregivers and CHWs.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Data from 293 parents was analyzed, revealing a significant link between a well-organized home environment and improved psychosocial behavior in children, as indicated by decreased symptoms on the Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC-17).
  • * Findings underscore the importance of considering family dynamics and home conditions in health interventions, emphasizing a family-centered approach for better health outcomes in children dealing with both chronic health issues and psychosocial challenges.
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Importance: Although 13-20% of American adolescents experience a depressive episode annually, no scalable primary care model for adolescent depression prevention is currently available.

Objective: To study whether CATCH-IT (Competent Adulthood Transition with Cognitive Behavioral Humanistic and Interpersonal Training) reduces the hazard for depression in at-risk adolescents identified in primary care, as compared to a general health education attention control (HE).

Design: The Promoting AdolescenT Health (PATH) study compares CATCH-IT and HE in a phase 3 single-blind multicenter randomized attention control trial.

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Health care systems across the United States are considering community health worker (CHW) services for high-risk patients, despite limited data on how to build and sustain effective CHW programs. We describe the process of providing CHW services to 5,289 at-risk patients within a state-run health system. The program includes 30 CHWs, six care coordinators, the Director of Care Coordination, the Medical Director, a registered nurse, mental health specialists, and legal specialists.

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Background: This study explored the implementation of Chicago Urban Resiliency Building (CURB), a randomized clinical trial designed as an Internet-based primary care depression prevention intervention for urban African American and Latino adolescents.

Methods: We utilized a mixed methods analysis to explore four aims. First, we estimated the percent of at-risk adolescents that were successfully screened.

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Background And Purpose: Depression affects millions of adolescents in the United States each year. This population may benefit from targeted preventive interventions. We sought to understand the internal factors that affect the ability of healthcare organizations to implement an intervention that involves mental health screening and depression prevention treatment of at-risk adolescents in primary care settings.

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Background Evidence-based Internet depression prevention intervention programs are not readily available for Arab youth, but may be effective in this group. Cultural adaptation of evidence-based Western psychotherapy is an important step toward better prevention and treatment of depressive illness in the Arab community. Project CATCH-IT is an Internet-based depression prevention intervention tool that is tailored for adolescents and young adults.

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Background: Internet Support Groups (ISGs) offer people easy access to information regarding depression as well as support from others who are either currently suffering from depression or have previously suffered from depression. The safety and efficacy of ISGs for people with depression have not been thoroughly studied.

Introduction: The safety and helpfulness of a depression ISG were assessed by analyzing pre- and postintervention depressive symptoms, other psychological outcomes, and participant ratings of helpfulness.

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Background: Depression prevention among adolescents is crucial for reducing the global disease burden. Internet-based depression prevention approaches are found to be effective but they were mostly evaluated in a Western context. Grasping the Opportunity is a Chinese Internet intervention, which was translated and modified from CATCH-IT developed in the West.

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We developed and tested two primary care based approaches for the early identification and prevention of depressive disorders in adolescents. We conducted a randomized controlled trial originally intended to compare Brief Advice (BA) + Internet intervention with Motivational Interviewing (MI) + Internet intervention in primary care for adolescents experiencing persistent subthreshold depression (Project CATCH-IT). This is an exploratory long-term 2.

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This study extended the literature by examining whether three profiles of depression predicted breast cancer status. In 1076 women of the Baltimore Epidemiologic Catchment Area study, depression status and hopelessness were measured at baseline and breast cancer status was ascertained 24 years later. Double depression, but not major depression or dysthymia, was associated with breast cancer.

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Efforts to prevent depression have become a key health system priority. Currently, there is a high prevalence of depression among adolescents, and treatment has become costly due to the recurrence patterns of the illness, impairment among patients, and the complex factors needed for a treatment to be effective. Primary care may be the optimal location to identify those at risk by offering an Internet-based preventive intervention to reduce costs and improve outcomes.

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Background: The high prevalence of major depressive disorder in adolescents and the low rate of successful treatment highlight a pressing need for accessible, affordable adolescent depression prevention programs. The Internet offers opportunities to provide adolescents with high quality, evidence-based programs without burdening or creating new care delivery systems. Internet-based interventions hold promise, but further research is needed to explore the efficacy of these approaches and ways of integrating emerging technologies for behavioral health into the primary care system.

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Background: The transition through adolescence places adolescents at increased risk of depression, yet care-seeking in this population is low, and treatment is often ineffective. In response, we developed an Internet-based depression prevention intervention (CATCH-IT) targeting at-risk adolescents.

Aims Of The Study: We explore CATCH-IT program costs, especially safety costs, in the context of an Accountable Care Organization as well as the perceived value of the Internet program.

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Guided by the Behavioral Vaccine Theory of prevention, this study uses a no-control group design to examine intervention variables that predict favorable changes in depressive symptoms at 6- to 8-week follow-up in at-risk adolescents who participated in a primary care, Internet-based prevention program. Participants included 83 adolescents from primary care settings ages 14 to 21 (M = 17.5, SD = 2.

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Objective: We developed a primary care/Internet-based intervention for adolescents at risk for depression (CATCH-IT, Competent Adulthood Transition with Cognitive-behavioral, Humanistic and Interpersonal Training). This phase II clinical trial compares two forms of primary care provider (PCP) engagement (motivational interview [MI] and brief advice [BA]) for adolescents using the Internet program.

Method: ADOLESCENTS SCREENING POSITIVE FOR DEPRESSION WERE RECRUITED FROM PRIMARY CARE PRACTICES AND RANDOMLY ASSIGNED TO A VERSION OF THE INTERVENTION: PCP MI + Internet program or PCP BA + Internet program.

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Background: There is a dearth of information on the compatibility of Western-developed, internet-based interventions that prevent onset and precipitation of depression in global settings. Recently, Project CATCH-IT (Competent Adulthood Transition with Cognitive-behavioral, Humanistic and Interpersonal Training), an information technology-based intervention, was adapted to prevent depression in Hong Kong Chinese adolescents. This paper evaluates qualitative data from consultations to develop a revised intervention of CATCH-IT for Hong Kong youth.

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