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Acceptance and commitment therapy programs have rarely been used as preventive tools for alleviating stress and enhancing coping skills among adolescents. This randomized controlled trial examined the efficacy of a novel Finnish web- and mobile-delivered five-week intervention program called Youth COMPASS among a general sample of ninth-grade adolescents ( n = 249, 49% females). The intervention group showed a small but significant decrease in overall stress (between-group Cohen’s d = 0.22) and an increase in academic buoyancy ( d = 0.27). Academic skills did not influence the intervention gains, but the intervention gains were largest among high-stressed participants. The results suggest that the acceptance and commitment based Youth COMPASS program may be well suited for promoting adolescents’ well-being in the school context.

BackgroundInternal motivation and good psychological capabilities are important factors in successful eating-related behavior change. Thus, we investigated whether general acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) affects reported eating behavior and diet quality and whether baseline perceived stress moderates the intervention effects.MethodsSecondary analysis of unblinded randomized controlled trial in three Finnish cities. Working-aged adults with psychological distress and overweight or obesity in three parallel groups: (1) ACT-based Face-to-face (n = 70; six group sessions led by a psychologist), (2) ACT-based Mobile (n = 78; one group session and mobile app), and (3) Control (n = 71; only the measurements). At baseline, the participants’ (n = 219, 85% females) mean body mass index was 31.3 kg/m2 (SD = 2.9), and mean age was 49.5 years (SD = 7.4). The measurements conducted before the 8-week intervention period (baseline), 10 weeks after the baseline (post-intervention), and 36 weeks after the baseline (follow-up) included clinical measurements, questionnaires of eating behavior (IES-1, TFEQ-R18, HTAS, ecSI 2.0, REBS), diet quality (IDQ), alcohol consumption (AUDIT-C), perceived stress (PSS), and 48-h dietary recall. Hierarchical linear modeling (Wald test) was used to analyze the differences in changes between groups.ResultsGroup x time interactions showed that the subcomponent of intuitive eating (IES-1), i.e., Eating for physical rather than emotional reasons, increased in both ACT-based groups (p = .019); the subcomponent of TFEQ-R18, i.e., Uncontrolled eating, decreased in the Face-to-face group (p = .020); the subcomponent of health and taste attitudes (HTAS), i.e., Using food as a reward, decreased in the Mobile group (p = .048); and both subcomponent of eating competence (ecSI 2.0), i.e., Food acceptance (p = .048), and two subcomponents of regulation of eating behavior (REBS), i.e., Integrated and Identified regulation (p = .003, p = .023, respectively), increased in the Face-to-face group. Baseline perceived stress did not moderate effects on these particular features of eating behavior from baseline to follow-up. No statistically significant effects were found for dietary measures.ConclusionsACT-based interventions, delivered in group sessions or by mobile app, showed beneficial effects on reported eating behavior. Beneficial effects on eating behavior were, however, not accompanied by parallel changes in diet, which suggests that ACT-based interventions should include nutritional counseling if changes in diet are targeted.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01738256), registered 17 August, 2012.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12966-018-0654-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

We were interested in investigating the effects of dance movement therapy (DMT) in a psychiatric outpatient clinic with patients diagnosed with depression. DMT aims to engage the patients in physical and verbal exploration of their experiences generated in movement based interaction. The assumption was that DMT, which includes both physical engagement as well as emotional and social exploration, would alleviate the mood and psychiatric symptoms. All adult patients (n = 33) included in the study received treatment as usual (TAU). Twenty-one patients participated in a 12-session DMT group intervention, and the remaining 12 patients chose to take TAU only. The majority of the patients suffered from moderate or severe depression, recurrent and/or chronic type. The effects of the interventions were investigated after the intervention, and at 3-month follow-up. Compared to the TAU, adding DMT seemed to improve the effect of the treatment. The effect of the DMT was observable whether the patient was taking antidepressant medication or not. At follow-up, between group effect sizes (ES) were medium in favor for the DMT group (d = 0.60–0.79). In the DMT group, the within ES at the 3 months follow-up varied from 0.62 to 0.82 as compared to TAU 0.15–0.37. The results indicated that DMT is beneficial in the treatment of depressed patients.

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