A technology-augmented intervention to prevent peer violence and depressive symptoms among at-risk emergency department adolescents: Protocol for a randomized control trial

Background: Peer violence and depressive symptoms are increasingly prevalent among adolescents, and for many, use the emergency department (ED) as their primary source of healthcare. Brief in-person interventions and longitudinal text-message-based interventions are feasible, acceptable, and may be effective in reducing peer violence and depressive symptoms when delivered in the ED setting. This paper presents the study design and protocol for an in-ED brief intervention (BI) and text messaging program (Text).

Methods: This study will be conducted in a pediatric ED which serves over 50,000 pediatric patients per year. Recruitment of study participants began in August 2018 and anticipated to continue until October 2021. The study will enroll 800 adolescents (ages13-17) presenting to the ED for any reason who self-report past-year physical peer violence and past-two week mild-to-moderate depressive symptoms. The study will use a factorial randomized trial to test both overall intervention efficacy and determine the optimal combination of intervention components. A full 2 × 2 factorial design randomizes patients at baseline to 1) BI or no BI; and 2) Text or no Text. Peer violence and depressive symptoms improvements will be measured at 2, 4, and 8 months through self-report and medical record review.

Discussion: This study has important implications for the progress of the greater field of mobile health interventions, as well as for adolescent violence and depression prevention in general. This proposal has high clinical and public health significance with high potential scalability, acceptability, and impact.