Assessing feasibility and acceptability of yoga and group CBT for adolescents with depression: A pilot randomized clinical trial
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Purpose: Given increasing rates of depression in adolescents, there is a clear need for innovative treatments. In this pilot randomized clinical trial, we assessed acceptability and feasibility of two group-based interventions: yoga and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). The goal of this work is to prepare for a future fully powered randomized trial to test the hypothesis that yoga is not inferior to an established adolescent depression treatment, namely, group CBT. Methods: We enrolled 42 adolescents with elevated depression symptoms. Participants were randomly assigned to a 12-week group-based intervention, yoga or CBT. We had a priori feasibility and acceptability targets, including for recruitment rate, retention rate, expectancy, credibility, program satisfaction, class attendance, engagement in home practice, and instructor/leader manual adherence. We assessed adverse events, and within-subject changes in outcomes (depression, anxiety, impairment, sleep disturbance) and possible mediators (mindfulness, self-compassion). Results: Both interventions met most acceptability and feasibility targets. The only target not met related to low engagement in home practice. Participants within each study arm showed decreased depression symptoms over time and increased self-compassion. Conclusions: A yoga intervention appears to be acceptable and feasible to adolescents with depression. However, it may be challenging for this group to engage in unstructured home practice.
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CBT has been shown to be effective in adolescents, outperforming both no intervention and other talk-based therapies.
“CBT has been shown to be effective in adolescents, outperforming both no intervention and other talk-based therapies (61, 62).”
From Recent developments in bibliotherapy for adolescent depression (2025) · cites this paper as [62]
The Introduction describes CBT as an established, efficacious treatment for adolescent depression, and the Results report decreased depression symptoms in the CBT group. The paper compares CBT with yoga, not with no intervention or other talk-based therapies, so it does not support the claimed superiority over those comparators (page numbers unavailable). (LLM, conf=0.88)
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- Authors
- Uebelacker, L. A., Wolff, J. C., Guo, J., Conte, K., Tremont, G., Kraines, M., O’Keeffe, B., Fristad, M. A., & Yen, S.
- Affiliations
- Brown University (US)
- Rhode Island Hospital (US)
- Butler Hospital (US)
- Nationwide Children's Hospital (US)
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (US)
- Corresponding author
- Uebelacker, Lisa A
- ORCID
- Venue
- Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2022-05-24
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 525-540
- ISSN
- 1359-1045 (ISSN-L)
- 1461-7021
- PMC
- PMC11927086
- OpenAlex
- W4281382099
- Cited by
- 14
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 1
- FWCI
- 2.74
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (R34 AT009886)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Keywords
- adolescent depression, yoga, group cognitive behavioral therapy, feasibility, acceptability, self-compassion, mindfulness, sleep disorders, anxiety, treatment retention
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Depression, Feasibility Studies, Humans, Pilot Projects, Yoga, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
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