ATTEND

Adolescents and carers using mindfulness Therapy to END depression

WHAT IS ATTEND?

ATTEND is a research study testing a new treatment for depression in adolescents called MAC (Mindfulness for Adolescents and Carers). Although we currently do not know the effectiveness of MAC, previous mindfulness-based therapies suggest positive results. The ATTEND study is a chance for you to work with us to test and develop an effective treatment for depression in young people.

 

What is the purpose of ATTEND?

Having depression or anxiety as a teenager is hard and can have a big impact on friendships, family relationships, education and employment. After receiving their first treatment, many young people still have some symptoms, or could experience another period of depression or anxiety in the future – it can seem like it’s following you around.

We want to know if MAC can help young people and their families to learn to recognise unhelpful thoughts and feelings, as well as to equip them with effective stress-coping strategies. In the long run, we want to see if symptoms of low mood or depression would improve over time and become less likely to persist in the future.

To see if the MAC treatment works well, and to understand how it works, we want to recruit about 480 young people across the country to our study.