Benjamin T. Kaveladze, J. Voelkel, M. Stagnaro, Mingjing Huang, Amanda E Smock, E. Sullivan, Yao M Xu, M. McCall, J. Zapata, Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Ananya Bhattacharjee, Iva Georgieva, Rosa Hernandez-Ramos, Kenneth S Huber, Julia K. Jennings, Arianna C. Kirk, R. Knowles, Rachel Kornfield, M. Lind, Michelle Liu, Michael Liut, A. Mariakakis, Ali M. Mattu, Adam P. McGuire, J. Meyerhoff, Alissa J. Mrazek, M. Mrazek, David C. Mohr, R. Morris, C. Mosunic, Hana Nip, Allen Olson-Urtecho, Jessa R. Podell, Dustyn S Ransom, Shireen Rizvi, Matthew W. Southward, S. Stoeckl, Madison E. Taylor, Amy R Texter, Calvin Tower, Angelique N. Trotter, J. J. Williams, Katherine E. Wislocki, Elijah J. Woodson, John Protzko, Lorenzo Lorenzo‐Luaces, Stephen M. Schueller, Matthew K. Nock, J. Schleider
2026.3.2Nature Human Behaviour
tlooto Summary
Nearly all SSIs improved psychological outcomes immediately after completion, but only two significantly reduced depression at 4-week follow-up, and completing an SSI made participants feel less confident and less interested in making changes to overcome depression at 4-week follow-up.
Abstract
Digital, self-guided, single-session interventions (SSIs) deliver structured psychological support within one interaction. Here we crowdsourced 66 diverse 10-min SSIs for depression and, with input from researchers and lived-experience experts, selected 11 for testing in a preregistered online randomized controlled trial (ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT06856668 ). US adults (N = 7,505) experiencing elevated depressive symptoms were randomly assigned to 1 of the 11 crowdsourced SSIs, a validated behavioural activation SSI (active comparator) or a control condition without intervention content. Nearly all SSIs improved psychological outcomes immediately after completion (d ≤ 0.37). However, only two SSIs significantly reduced depression at 4-week follow-up (d = 0.14 and 0.15). Unexpectedly, completing an SSI made participants feel less confident and less interested in making changes to overcome depression at 4 weeks, on average (d = 0.05). Future work should aim to leverage SSIs’ immediate benefits to promote sustained behaviour change or service engagement. An online experiment compared 12 brief online interventions for depression. Most improved mental health immediately, but these gains decreased over time, with only two interventions significantly reducing depression 4 weeks later.
Citation format
KAVELADZE, Benjamin T., et al. A crowdsourced megastudy of 12 digital single-session interventions for depression in US adults. Nature Human Behaviour, 2026, 10(5): 906–922.