Physical Activity Based Treatment for Youth With Depression and Anxiety

Summary

The Confident, Active, and Happy Youth (CAHY) project aims to address the significant functional impairments experienced by youths with symptoms of depression and anxiety, focusing on physical activity (PA) and social participation. Traditional treatments, such as psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy, have shown moderate success, with many patients continuing to face functional and social challenges. This research seeks to fill that gap by testing the effectiveness of a physical activity-based intervention in a clinical setting to improve mental health and functional outcomes in clinical populations.

The study will be conducted as a pragmatic, randomized controlled trial, comparing CAHY with a waitlist control group in a real-world clinical setting. The intervention targets disease-specific barriers to PA and social participation, including fatigue, avoidance behaviors and low self-efficacy. The central challenge lies in adapting PA interventions to the clinical needs of youth with psychiatric disorders, which is essential for addressing the social and functional impairments associated with these disorders.

If proven effective, the results could have broad applications, offering a non-pharmacological treatment that is scalable and adaptable to various healthcare settings. The intervention supplements current treatment approaches and can improve patient outcomes in the short- and long-term, and can ultimately decrease healthcare service utilization by promoting better self-care and health habits

Conditions

• Anxiety Depression

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Confident, Active and Happy youth (CAHY)

CAHY is a group-based, bi-weekly, seven-week long, therapist led intervention targeting core symptoms of anxiety and depression (barriers). Children and adolescents participate in age adjusted groups of max. eight: a child group age 8-10 years, a youngster group aged 11-3 years and adolescents group aged 14-17 years. Sessions are 50 mins. long, and offer a supportive, non-competitive, playful, and mastery-oriented climate to facilitate the individuals' need for relatedness, foster self-efficacy, motivation, fun and provide a safe space to practice exposure and gain positive experiences with social participation. CAHY incorporates established knowledge from physiological and psychological theory to address these barriers. The interventions targets youth with mental health disorders, and is delivered in a clinical setting.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Western Norway University of Applied Sciences

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Bergen

  collaborator OTHER

• NORCE Norwegian Research Centre AS

  collaborator OTHER

• Haukeland University Hospital

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Arne Kodal, PhD · NORCE - Norwegian Research Centre

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

8 Years

Max Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2025-12-15

Primary Completion

2027-07-01

Completion

2028-07-01

Countries

• Norway

Study Locations