View clinical trials related to Depressive Symptoms.
Filter by:Background: Depression is prevalent and can have devastating effects on the life of adolescents. Computerized intervention programs for depression have shown positive results. There is less evidence in prevention and early treatment for depression in Latin American adolescents. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine whether a stepped internet-based program is effective to prevent and early intervene depression in adolescents attending 9th to 11th grade in eight schools in Santiago, Chile. Study design: A two-arm cluster-randomized clinical trial will be carried out with approximately 600 adolescents.
The purpose of this early Phase 2 comparison trial is to evaluate the impact of community health worker (CHW) home visitors on pregnant women and their children in a rural setting in the rural Eastern Cape of South Africa. The intervention provided by the CHWs targets underweight children, mothers living with HIV (MLH), mothers using alcohol, and depressed mothers with the goal of supporting pregnant women to improve birth outcomes, decrease the number of children born with a low birthweight, and develop child caretaking skills over time. UCLA has identified and matched four areas surrounding primary health care clinics: two intervention areas in which this CHW program has been running for one year, and two control areas without the program. Mothers in the research area are followed for one year after giving birth.
Despite their efficacy at controlling joint inflammation, current treatments of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) leave up to 40% of patients into non-remission. Non-remission is most frequently due to persistently negative self-reported global impact of RA, and not to remaining swollen joints or elevated levels of acute phase reactants. In a cohort of recent-onset RA patients diagnosed early and treated to remission (Sherbrooke Early Undifferentiated PolyArthritis (EUPA) cohort), treatment of active disease rapidly led to reduced depressive symptoms in most, but 20% still expressed elevated depressive symptoms (using the CES-D screening tool) after a mean of 7 months. Elevated CES-D scores at this early time strongly predicted never reaching remission over the following 4 years. Elevated CES-D scores were strongly correlated with increased levels of patient-related outcomes (PROs such as fatigue, pain, sleep quality, stiffness and functional limitation), but not with joint or systemic inflammation. In fact, 80% of patients expressing depressive symptoms had controlled joint disease at the same visit. The investigators propose that addressing depressive symptoms will improve RA patients' symptoms and quality of life. In clinical practice, the best indicator of depressive symptoms is the presence of a disconnect between the Patient's (Pt-VAS) and the Physician's (MD-VAS) evaluation of disease activity in patients without objective signs of inflammation. This pilot study will explore the feasibility and acceptability of testing MBSR in these patients. It will assess over 6 months the changes in depressive symptoms and PROs both in controls and MBSR-treated patients. If positive, the investigators plan to complete a multicenter 6-month Randomized Clinical trial (RCT) (with a 2 year follow up) to formally address the risks/benefits of group MBSR interventions in RA patients with controlled inflammatory disease but positive disconnect between Pt-VAS and MD-VAS.
After completion of 5 years of medical school training, the next step of becoming a House Officer is said to be associated with high levels of stress. It has been associated with mental health problems amongst HOs and sometimes quitting the medical line altogether. In Malaysia, the number of HOs not completing housemanship training within the allocated time is slowly declining from 86.4% (2009) to 58.8% (2012). The dropout rate is said to be increasing yearly. This causes a lot of constraints on the HO, their family, sponsors, patients and also the country. Amongst the reason for stress is the feeling of incompetency or "fear of making mistakes". Other work-related issues include workload, time management, financial, colleague and superior related issues. Medicorp is a company that specializes in training for junior doctors and has come up with a module to help medical graduates cope with these issues. The module is a 3-day-course named the HO Preparatory Course. It was initially the brainchild of the Islamic Medical Association of Malaysia (IMAM) but was later privatized to accommodate the demand and the running of the module and courses. The module has been re-evaluated through feedback of participants and trainers to cater to the needs and wants of the newly graduate; be it local or overseas. Therefore, the investigators would like to assess whether this intervention module is effective in addressing HO stress, therefore consequently reduce the risk of drop out and extension in HO training.
Caregivers suffer great amounts of distress that significantly impacts their mental and physical well-being, yet caregivers' access to quality, evidence-based care is currently very limited. The public health significance of the proposed study is that our internet and mobile-based web intervention will (1) significantly reduce caregiver distress and improve caregivers' overall well-being, and (2) dramatically increase caregivers' access to high quality, evidence-based care at relatively low cost.
Well-child care is the primary source of preventative health care for children. These visits provide an opportunity for physicians to assess an infant's biomedical health, development, and behavior, as well as help ensure timely immunizations, reduce the use of acute care services, and assess and family functioning. Yet, disparities in the utilization of pediatric care exist by race, ethnicity and income in the U.S., even despite high rates of overall access to primary care. Incentives have been proposed as one way to increase utilization of preventative care for mothers and children. Diapering is another important form of preventative health care that can be particularly difficult for low-income parents due the cost of diapers, which is $70-80 per child per month, or approximately $960 per year, on average. And government programs, such as Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), either cannot be used to purchase diapers, or do not provide enough assistance to cover the cost of diapers and other basic needs. A family's inability to provide an adequate supply of diapers for their child is called diaper need. Nationwide, one in three families with young children report experiencing diaper need, which was found to be significantly associated with maternal stress and depression, which in turn, can have a detrimental impact on a family's health and economic success. The primary goal of this study is to conduct a randomized controlled trial of a diaper provision intervention designed to increase utilization of, and adherence to, well-child visits and reduce diaper need among low-resourced families in New Haven, CT.
This study will examine whether accelerated resolution therapy (ART) is effective for the treatment of prolonged and complicated grief and associated psychological trauma among older adult hospice caregivers who have experienced the death of an immediate family member at least 12 months ago.
Theory and research on the gut-brain-axis emphasize complex interactions between the gut microbiota, immunological and hormonal responses, brain function, brain structure, as well as resulting behavioral manifestations, such as cognitive functions and mental illness. Probiotics are living micro-organisms that change the composition of the gut microbiota and hypothetically have a positive effect on the host's general health and well-being. Probiotic bacteria naturally occur in foods such as Sauerkraut, olives, and dark chocolate, and are currently also added to industrial products such as yogurt. Regarding the effect of probiotics on brain structure and function, animal studies have shown that the administration of probiotics in mice and rats was linked to neurogenesis in the hippocampus and an improvement of associated cognitive functions. The majority of these studies applied probiotics for 4 weeks. The substances used in these studies were often composed of several bacterial strains, suggesting that the neurogenic effect may not be reducible to a specific type of probiotic bacteria. Probiotics seem to be effective in improving memory abilities, including spatial and non-spatial memory, both in rodents and humans. Moreover, specifically regarding the beneficial effect of probiotics on anxiety, depression and stress, preliminary evidence in humans is compelling. However methodologically sound (randomized-controlled trial [RCT], 'blind') studies are still lacking. To sum up, the present study is going to be the first RCT with human participants that investigates structural and functional changes of the hippocampus through probiotic bacteria, using Magnet Resonance Imaging (MRI). In addition, the study aims at advancing research in the field by investigating the effects of probiotics on a broad spectrum of cognitive functions, particularly those associated with hippocampal activity (e.g. spatial memory, verbal memory). Furthermore, effects on several types of mental illness (e.g. anxiety, depression, stress) will be studied. Potential translatory mechanisms that may promote the aforementioned effects will be examined, i.e. changes in immunological parameters, 'brain derived neurotrophic factor' (BDNF), and oxytocin.
The main objective of this study is to examine the efficacy of a new psychological intervention, called Back2School, in helping youths with problematic school absenteeism to return to school. Furthermore, the study will examine how well this program fares against the treatment or interventions that are usually given to youths with school absenteeism (treatment as usual or TAU). Based on previous studies we hypothesize that the Back2School intervention will be better at improving levels of school attendance as compared with treatment as usual (TAU).
In this feasibility RCT of the modular and flexible cognitive and behavioural therapy (Mind My Mind, MMM) compared with treatment as usual, the overall research aim was to explore the trial design and the acceptability of the assessments, interventions and outcome measures among children, parents, teachers and therapists, and secondly to provide data to estimate the parameters required to design a definitive RCT.