Project Relate: Romantic Relationship Competence SSI

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased social isolation and depressive symptoms in youth, adding strain to an already overwhelmed mental healthcare system. Online single-session interventions are digital programs that can help expand access to care and teach evidence-based skills. To help youth build healthy relationships, we developed 3 online single-session interventions (SSI) to teach romantic competence skills to adolescents and emerging adults. Youth, ages 16-20, will be recruited to social media and randomly assigned to one of two conditions: the intervention condition, offering them three SSIs to select from, or an information-only control group. Within the intervention condition, youth will complete one of three romantic competence SSIs: (1) Insight, targeting awareness of one's needs in relationships, (2) Communication, teaching listening and communication skills, and (3) Stay vs. Go, helping youth make difficult decisions. Investigators will assess each SSI's relative benefits on relationship knowledge and depressive symptoms up to three months later compared to the information-only control group. Results will reveal if online SSIs can teach romantic competence skills and if engaging in these interventions has psychosocial benefits for youth with elevated depressive symptoms.

Inclusion Criteria:are fluent in Englishhave consistent internet and computer/laptop/smartphone accessreport elevated depressive symptoms (a score of >2 on the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 item version [PHQ-2])Exclusion Criteria:fail to meet the above-listed inclusion criteriaexit the study prior to condition randomizationrespond with either copy/pasted responses from text earlier in the intervention to any of free response questionsobvious lack of English fluency in open response questionsresponding with random text in open response questionsduplicate responses from the same individual in baseline or follow-up surveys