TEAM-CBT for Adolescents and Young Adults With Depression and Anxiety: Testing Short-Term Impact and Within-Session Change

Abstract

The prevalence of mental health disorders has shown a notable rise in adolescents and young adults (Parodi et al., 2022). These developmental stages, adolescence and young adulthood, are peak periods for emerging mental health disorders, affecting around 49.5% of young individuals. Anxiety and depression have significant adverse and long-term effects that interfere with developmental tasks if not successfully treated (Merikangas, 2010).

An evidence-based model, TEAM-CBT, incorporates the following treatment components: testing, empathy, agenda setting, and methods. The model’s impact on depression and anxiety was tested in a naturalistic study of adolescent and young adult clients in a group practice setting. T-tests and ANOVAs were used to test treatment effects, including changes between the first and final sessions, within-session changes, and the treatment response pattern.

A total of N = 116 patients’ data was included in the analysis. Both depression and anxiety scores were significantly lower at posttest compared to pretest. The majority of adolescents and young adults achieved clinically significant improvement: 80% of youth no longer met criteria for clinically significant symptoms of depression symptoms, and 87% of youth for anxiety symptoms. No correlation was found between the number of sessions received and the treatment outcome. Within-session symptom reduction was clinically significant in each of the 10 sessions. The largest symptom reductions occurred over the first five sessions. Findings, recommendations, and implications are discussed.