Depression Critique

Critique on Universal Depression Prevention Programme

Research article for critique

Wong, P W. C., Fu, K. W., Chan K. Y. K., Chan, W. S. C., Liu, P. M. Y., Law, Y. W., Yip, P. S. F. Effectiveness of a universal school-based programme for preventing depression in Chinese adolescents: A quasi-experimental pilot study. Journal of Affective Disorders 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2012.03.050.

Summary

The goal of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the two-phase universal program, the “Little Prince is Depressed” (LPD), on reducing of depressive symptoms and enhancing students’ knowledge of depressive symptoms and life skills. The development of this study was based on the previous research that universal programs had

Youth depression was one of the major risk factors for youth suicide, the prevalence rates of youth depressive symptoms and depressive disorders in US and Hong Kong had been reported to indicate the importance of exploring youth depression in Hong Kong. In the literature review, the study stated that limited number of psychologists and psychiatrists available in Hong Kong as reported by the World Health Organization as the cause of limited provision of pharmacological and psychological treatments for youth depressions. Evidence-based depression prevention programmes for adolescents in non-Western societies were also scarce as stated in the literature review. For the programmes for youth depressions, the study had stated three approaches, the selective, indicated and universal approaches. The pros of universal approach was the broad application of implementation, however, the cons was the smaller effect size when compared with the selective and indicated approaches, mixed results were also reported in previous research. Based on the findings of the previous studies, the study had narrowed down these findings into the research problem that the effectiveness of implementing universal programme for youth depressions prevention in Hong Kong was worth

In the study, only 410 participants had been recruited that the sample size was too small to provide sufficient power for valid statistical analysis. There was no information about how the participants were assigned to intervention or control groups, the extent of randomization in grouping was unknown. According to the literature review, gender differences could be one of the extraneous variables affecting the effect size of universal depression prevention programmes, uneven sampling of male and female might lead to unrepresentative samples that the effect of gender differences could not be examined or eliminated. Moreover, the number of male and female in intervention and control groups was unevenly distributed that the effect of programme on gender differences could not be able to be examined. Stratified random sampling was advised in future studies to ensure even recruitment and grouping of male and female in order to have clear picture of the effect of gender differences on the effectiveness of depression prevention