A Practical Guide to Adapting Evidence-Based Treatments into Digital Single-Session Interventions for Youth

There is an urgent need to design scalable mental health treatments, particularly for disadvantaged populations with limited access to mental healthcare. Digital single-session interventions adapted from existing evidence-based treatments are one solution to this problem, allowing potent skills to be widely accessible for diverse communities via brief, targeted, online programs. There is increasing demand and interest in developing digital single-session interventions, yet there exists no guide on how to adapt single-session interventions from existing interventions, making it difficult for researchers to engage in intervention developing and testing. Objective: To equip researchers with the confidence they need to develop single-session interventions, this manuscript outlines why digital single-session interventions are needed and creates a step-by-step guide on how to develop single-session intervention programs from existing evidence-based treatments. Method: We gathered eight scientists, all of whom have taken part in developing different single-session interventions. Results: Together, we crafted five guiding elements to consider during the development process, such as preparation (cultivating a single-session mindset), collaboration (assembling the right team to reach target audience), adaptation (selecting appropriate treatments and components), design (creating the content of the intervention), and engagement (using best practices to increase online uptake and learning). We provide an example of how we developed an online single-session intervention to enhance healthy relationship skills for youth with depressive symptoms. For more detail and direction, we created a supplementary designing SSIs checklist. Conclusion: This manuscript serves as a guide for intervention scientists, allowing for the creation of evidence-based, scalable digital single-session interventions for youth.