Narrative Intervention to Disseminate ACT for Depression in Primary Care

The public health impact of existing treatments for major depression is limited by our ability to disseminate those treatments. There is a particular need to find innovative ways to disseminate key principles of empirically supported psychotherapy in primary care settings. Narrative communication is an alternative way to disseminate psychotherapy behavior change principles. Narrative communication refers to "storytelling" -real people talking about their struggles and successful ways of coping. An advantage of narrative communication is that it can be easily distributed (by video) and may reach people who do not have access to other technologies or who experience barriers to traditional psychotherapy. We propose that key principles of a type of cognitive-behavioral therapy (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT) can be readily disseminated through a video storytelling intervention. Together with a video production firm with a record of working in healthcare and developing documentary-style videos, we will produce a storytelling video intervention (sTVi).

Our specific aim is to conduct a pilot randomized controlled trial (n = 40) with depressed primary care patients who will receive either antidepressant treatment as usual (aTAU) + sTVi vs aTAU + attention control videos. Assessments will occur at baseline, 4 (post-treatment) and 12 weeks (follow-up). We will examine feasibility and acceptability of sTVi (e.g., uptake and completion of sTVi, engagement with videos, and understanding of key ACT principles), the attention control videos, and this research design. We will examine treatment differences (within relevant confidence intervals) on outcomes (e.g., depression severity). We will examine change in potential mechanisms, i.e., ACT-consistent coping strategies derived from key ACT principles.