Project Relate: A Randomized Clinical Trial of a Digital Single-Session Romantic Competence Intervention

Youth begin to make difficult decisions about romantic relationships in emerging adulthood; yet, most relationship education programs target adults in existing relationships and are delivered in-person, creating dissemination barriers. Online single-session interventions (SSIs) can expand intervention access and teach youth evidence-based relational skills. In the present study, we adapted an evidence-based romantic competence intervention into a digital SSI for youth with elevated depressive symptoms. A large diverse sample of emerging adults (N = 802) experiencing depressive symptoms were recruited via social media and randomly assigned to one of two conditions: intervention “Project Relate,” focused on teaching youth relationship skills (e.g., insight, communication, and decision-making) or an information-only control group. Youth were assessed at baseline, post-intervention, and 3 months later. Results indicated high intervention acceptability but no differences between conditions. Across conditions, youth reported improvements in depression, anxiety, relationship knowledge, relationship decision-making, hopelessness, and loneliness (ds ranging from 0.19 to -1.68); youth also noted qualitative improvements in relationship skills across conditions. Findings suggest that both information-only and skills based digital SSIs may improve relational and psychological functioning for youth.