Clinical Effectiveness of TARA Compared to Standard Treatment for Adolescents and Young Adults With Depression

Depressive Disorders constitute an increasing global health concern and available treatments for young people have not been sufficiently effective in haltering this trend. The novel group treatment program "Training for Awareness, Resilience, and Action" (TARA) was developed to target specific mechanisms based on neuroscientific findings in adolescent depression. TARA is framed within the National Institute of Mental Health's Research Domain Criteria and has documented feasibility and preliminary efficacy in adolescents with depression. In this study, young people (age: 15-22) with depression will be recruited from specialized Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Youth Clinics and randomized to receive either TARA or Standard Treatment (ST) until n=67 is reached in each arm. Outcome measures will be obtained before randomization (T0), 6 weeks after treatment start (T0.5), at 3- and 6 months follow-up (T1, T2). The primary outcome measure is Reynold's Adolescent Depression Scale (RADS-2) score at T1. Secondary outcome measures are RADS-2-score at T2, clinician depression rating with Children's Depression Rating Scale, Revised at T1,and self-rated anxiety with Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children, 2nd ed. at T1 and T2. Other outcomes include heart rate variability and systemic bioindicators for depression from blood and hair. Data collected from subgroups within the study will include: brain magnetic resonance imaging and accelerometry. Qualitative interviews will be performed to reach a more comprehensive understanding of the subjective experience of being depressed and to what extent treatment adequately addresses this experience. A 2-year follow-up (T3) will be performed and presented separately. The study will be the first Randomized Controlled Trial to examine the clinical effectiveness of TARA compared to ST for young people with depression. The investigators hypothesize that (1) TARA will result in greater reduction of depression symptoms compared to S