Online Positive Emotion Skills Intervention for Symptoms of Depression (MARIGOLD)
Online Positive Emotion Skills Intervention for Symptoms of Depression (MARIGOLD)
Major depressive disorder affects over 120 million people worldwide. Only 50% of Americans with depression receive adequate treatment, and one-third of those receiving treatment do not benefit. In this pilot project investigators will bring together two approaches that have the promise to reach large numbers of depression sufferers: a skills-based intervention for increasing positive affect and experiences in depressed individuals, delivered in an inexpensive self-paced mobile format. The study will make use of smartphone technology to improve conventional outcome measurement via in-the-moment emotion sampling and mobile assessment of heart rate variability, a predictor of cardiac health that may mediate some of the health effects of depression. The aims are: 1) Retool the existing web-based positive emotion intervention for use on smartphones, with innovative exercises that help participants bring the skills they are learning into real-life situations; 2) Perform a small feasibility trial of the mobile intervention on individuals with clinical depression recruited online 3) Eventually incorporate feedback from the small feasibility trial to improve the online intervention and conduct a full randomized trial on a larger scale
Inclusion Criteria: