The Impact of Coach-guided Risk Communication on the Risk of Major Depression

Recruiting now · Not applicable · Has a placebo group

Conditions studied: Major Depressive Episode, Risk Reduction, Self Efficacy

In brief

Depression is a highly prevalent and disabling mental health problem. One way of preventing depression is to stop it before it happens through effective self-management. Working with potential users, a coach-guided, personalized depression risk communication tool (PDRC) was developed for sharing information about individualized depression risk, risk profile (risk factors present), potential risk reduction and evidence-based self-help strategies. It is anticipate that the PDRC will greatly motivate users to actively engage in self-help and help seeking, leading to a reduced risk of depression. The proposed study will recruit 500 male and 500 female adults who are at high risk of having depression across Canada, and randomly allocate them into the intervention and control groups. Participants will be followed for 12 months. The data of the trial will allow us to answer the questions: (1) Can the coach-guided PDRC reduce the risk of depression? (2) Does the intervention motivate people to actively engage in evidence-based self-help and help-seeking behaviors? (3) For whom the intervention works best? and (4) what are the costs and potential savings associated with the intervention? If successful, this project will offer a novel and effective tool for early prevention of major depression in the Canadian general population, help us understand how it works and the cost-effectiveness of implementing such a tool in the community from the economic perspective.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT06619366

Run by

Dalhousie University

People needed

1000

Starts

2025-02-10

Expected to finish

2029-10-01

Last updated by the study team

2025-09-02

Who can join

Age: 18 and older, up to 65. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

You may qualify if…

• no MDE at baseline, or full remission for 2 months for those who had a past MDE (see below the question).
• Aged 18 and 65 years.
• At high risk of MDE based on the depression risk calculators (predicted risk of 6.5%+ for males and 11.2%+ for females), which represent the top two deciles of male and female populations in Canada.
• Agreement to be contacted for follow-up assessments, and
• no language barriers to English or French

You may not qualify if…

• individuals who
• cannot provide informed consent,
• do not agree to be followed,
• cannot communicate in English and French, or
• report suicide behaviors (score \>0 on item 9 of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9)).

Where it is running

• Faculty of Medicine — Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (enrolling)

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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