Development and Evaluation of an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) Baseline Screening System for Therapists Who Treat Youths With Depressive Symptoms

Youth depression is a matter of concern worldwide. It affects an important part of the young population around the world and its consequences both physically and mentally make this issue an important research field for psychologists and other health related professionals (Zuckerbrot, Cheung, Jensen, Stein & Laraque, 2018). Two of the biggest challenges that clinicians and researchers face when dealing with youth depression are adherence and the establishment of a therapeutic alliance (TA; Nock & Ferriter, 2005). While several treatments are available to relief depressive symptomatology in youths, a significant number do not access them for a variety of reasons (DiMatteo, Lepper & Corgan, 2000). In the last decades, substantial research has been conducted on how youths and the general population perceive therapy, and different methods have been developed to assess clients and therapists in order to improve outcomes and other aspects of the psychotherapy process, such as feedback tools and real-time measurements like Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) (Shiffman, et al., 2008). With the aid of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) and eMental Health strategies, feedback and assessment tools can be presented in a friendly manner, providing a novel way to possibly improving adherence rates and TA scores. This study aims to develop and test the effectiveness of an Ecological Momentary Assessment mobile application to improve initial adherence and TA in psychotherapy for youths with depression.

The hypotheses for this trial are:

1. Applying an EMA baseline screening application one week before the beginning of treatment for youth depression will significantly improve the TA.
2. Applying an EMA baseline screening application one week before the beginning of treatment for youth depression will significantly improve initial adherence.