I am a pediatrician specializing in adolescent medicine at Children?s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC and Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. The overarching goal of my research program is to increase use of mental health services by adolescents with depression and/or anxiety. Although recent evidence shows integrated care models increase service use, implementing these models is resource intense. Even in primary care settings with access to services and routine screening for depression and anxiety, patient engagement is low. This can be explained by a low perceived need for services present in both adolescents and parents. Key target mechanisms which may increase service use include: (1) parents? and adolescents? health beliefs and knowledge, (2) emotional/informational support, and (3) communication about mental health with each other. The ?SOVA? or ?Supporting Our Valued Adolescents? intervention aims to address these key mechanisms through two moderated social media websites (one for parents, one for adolescents) with daily blog posts, peer interactions, and discussion guides. I developed SOVA during an internal career development award (PCOR K12 HS 22989-1) and found it was usable but had modest engagement. The current K23 proposal aims to (1) understand potential challenges to SOVA implementation in a primary care setting and develop user engage- ment interventions, (2) use a pilot randomized controlled trial of SOVA to refine recruitment and retention strat- egies, measure implementation outcomes and investigate potential mechanisms of action in depressed and/or anxious adolescents not currently engaged in treatment and their parents, and (3) examine parent-adolescent communication factors about mental health and relationship quality in the context of a web-based intervention. To achieve the goals of my research plan and long-term career goal to develop an independent research career, I require further training in: (1) implementation science, (2) methodological, analytical skills in clinical trials; and (3) quantitative skills to evaluate parent-adolescent dyadic communication. I have assembled a men- toring team of experts to help me achieve these goals including: Dr. Elizabeth Miller, Chief of the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, who has expertise in complex RCT design; Dr. Bradley Stein, a child psychiatrist and expert in child mental health services research including implementation of technological inter- ventions; and Dr. Denise Charron-Prochownik, Chair of the Department of Health Promotion and Development at the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, who has expertise in evaluating and designing dyadic inter- ventions for parents and adolescents. The proposed research program would equip me with preliminary find- ings and training to inform the design of a large multi-site hybrid implementation-effectiveness trial RCT to evaluate whether SOVA combined with targeted implementation strategies compared to enhanced usual care increases use of mental health services in community primary care settings. In addition, findings from this pro- posal would lead to a greater understanding of parent and adolescent communication about mental health.
Up to a third of adolescents with depression or anxiety may not get treatment. The SOVA intervention, two social media sites (one for adolescents, one for parents) aims to address negative health beliefs, knowledge about depression or anxiety, parent-adolescent communication, in a moderated online peer community, with the goal of increasing adolescent use of mental health services.
| Radovic, Ana; DeMand, Alexandra L; Gmelin, Theresa et al. (2018) SOVA: Design of a stakeholder informed social media website for depressed adolescents and their parents. J Technol Hum Serv 35:169-182 |
| Radovic, Ana; Gmelin, Theresa; Hua, Jing et al. (2018) Supporting Our Valued Adolescents (SOVA), a Social Media Website for Adolescents with Depression and/or Anxiety: Technological Feasibility, Usability, and Acceptability Study. JMIR Ment Health 5:e17 |
| Richardson, Laura P; McCarty, Carolyn A; Radovic, Ana et al. (2017) Research in the Integration of Behavioral Health for Adolescents and Young Adults in Primary Care Settings: A Systematic Review. J Adolesc Health 60:261-269 |
