Summary. Who We Are: Kaya Guides runs a self-help course on WhatsApp to reduce depression at scale in low and middle-income countries. We help young adults with moderate to severe depression. Kaya currently operates in India. We are the world's first nonprofit implementer of Step-by-Step, the World Health Organization's digital guided self-help program, which was proven effective in two RCTs. Pilot: We ran a pilot with 103 participants in India to assess the feasibility of implementing our program on WhatsApp with our target demographic and to generate early indicators of its effectiveness. Results: 72% of program completers experienced depression reduction of 50% or greater. 36% were depression-free. 92% moved down at least a classification in severity (i.e. they shifted from severe to moderately severe, moderately severe to moderate, etc). The average reduction in score was 10 points on the 27-point PHQ-9 depression questionnaire. Context: To offer a few [...] ---Outline:(04:44) Part 1. About the Kaya Guides Program(04:49) What is Kaya Guides and what do we do?(05:13) How the program works(05:35) Evidence base(06:11) Why guided self-help is effective(06:50) Why this work matters(07:52) Program design(08:46) Target participant profile(09:14) Impact measurement(10:00) Part 2. Pilot Impact and Cost-Effectiveness(10:18) Impacts on depression(11:01) Comparison(12:10) Effect Size Estimate(14:35) Takeaway(15:02) Cost-Effectiveness(15:29) Pilot Cost-Effectiveness(17:15) 2025 Projected Cost-Effectiveness(19:15) Program Impacts According to Participants(22:50) Part 3. Recruitment(22:55) Quick Stats(24:20) Participant Profile(25:38) Part 4. Retention(27:45) Part 5. Participant Feedback(31:19) What's Next(32:05) Support Us---
First published:
June 16th, 2024

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6NaRJpSn2zfRSnGYN/kaya-guides-pilot-results
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.