Penn Resiliency Program

The Penn Resiliency Program (PRP) is fostered by the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center, with project initiatives carried out by other universities, including Swarthmore College and West Chester University. This group-based program seeks to prevent the initial onset of and decrease the exacerbation of depression in young elementary and middle school-aged children. By incorporating specific coping and problem-solving skills, this intervention attempted to study two main facets of research: the efficacy of the program implemented by school staff and the decrease in severity of depressive symptoms at onset, and a generalized decrease in the level of symptoms displayed over a specific length of time.

The PRP is a secondary prevention strategy that identifies disease or illness in its earliest stages and prevents further progression. The subjects of this study were categorized according to the severity of the symptoms they present. The main focus of the initiative is to curb the extent to which symptoms occur in the children and decrease the severity of symptom onset. In the present study, PRP was compared to another initiative, the Penn Enhancement Program (PEP), and a no-intervention control (CON). All three groups completed the same weekly assignments. It was hypothesized that the PRP would decrease depression symptoms when compared to the PEP and the control groups. Beginning in 1997, this randomized controlled study was implemented in three suburban, metropolitan schools in the U.S with each producing mixed results. There were a total of 697 students, stratified by gender and grade level, entering the intervention phase. These children cleared an initial survey and screening, Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI), for baseline measures of the severity of depression disorders. A CDI score greater than or equal to 13 signified mild to severe depression, and these students were excluded from the study. PRP progresses by teaching students various cognitive-behavioral and problem-solving related skills, and how to apply these to situations they face. The sessions were conducted once a week (90 minutes) for twelve weeks with weekly assignments. School teachers, counselors, and graduate students who were not directly affiliated with the research team led these group discussions.

The Penn Resiliency Program is a depression prevention program that seeks to reduce the longevity of symptoms exhibited and the severity of symptoms at onset of depression, through cognitive-behavioral therapy and problem-solving techniques.

The Penn Resiliency program shows that a group-based program seeking to prevent the initial onset of and decrease the exacerbation of depression children and teens by incorporating specific coping and problem-solving skills can reduce depressive symptoms over time.

The Penn Resiliency Program (PRP) provides guidance to adolescents to understand, relate, and interpret everyday events to cope with depression. This randomized controlled, evidence-based study allows for comparisons to a control (CON) and an alternative program, Penn Enhancement Program (PEP), which focuses more on discussing the stress factors related to adolescent depression. The initial means of CDI scores for schools A, B, and C were 7.03, 9.51, and 8.71 respectively with a total of 697 participants. Since schools A and B presented similar results, the researchers combined A and B’s data to compare to school C.

Though the statistical results did not show a significant level of reduction in depression, the absolute decrease of depressive symptoms in participants from A and B highlighted PRP’s positive benefits. During this study, the data from A and B revealed prevention of elevated depressive symptoms relative to CON (p<0.01). However, PEP demonstrated similar results relative to CON (p<0.10). This similarity is thought to be the result of the two programs having similar implementation methods. During follow-up, PRP reduced clinical symptoms compared to CON (p<0.05), while PEP did not (p<0.05). On the contrary, C did not produce the same study results in the general reduction of symptoms (p<0.05) or in the follow-up relative to CON. Regardless, PRP is more promising in keeping adolescents mentally healthy than no program at all. These results reflect little effectiveness and specificity of PRP, but there have been more investigations on PRP—whether it is implemented or conducted as a study to see its effects on other demographic populations.