Moderated online social therapy for depression relapse prevention in young people: pilot study of a ‘next generation’ online intervention

Aim Implementation of targeted e‐mental health interventions offers a promising solution to reducing the burden of disease associated with youth depression. A single‐group pilot study was conducted to evaluate the acceptability, feasibility, usability and safety of a novel, moderated online social therapy intervention (entitled Rebound) for depression relapse prevention in young people. Methods Participants were 42 young people (15–25 years) (50% men; mean age = 18.5 years) in partial or full remission. Participants had access to the Rebound platform for at least 12 weeks, including the social networking, peer and clinical moderator and therapy components. Results Follow‐up data were available for 39 (92.9%) participants. There was high system usage, with 3034 user logins (mean = 72.2 per user) and 2146 posts (mean = 51.1). Almost 70% of users had ≥10 logins over the 12 weeks, with 78.5% logging in over at least 2 months of the pilot. A total of 32 (84%) participants rated the intervention as helpful. There was significant improvement between the number of participants in full remission at baseline (n = 5; none of whom relapsed) relative to n = 19 at 12‐week follow‐up (P