Assessing Fidelity to and Satisfaction with the “Adolescent Coping with Depression Course” (ACDC) Intervention in a Randomized Controlled Trial

This paper aims at describing the process for assessing the intervention fidelity of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of an “Adolescent Coping with Depression Course” (ACDC) and to assess the participants’ satisfaction with the intervention. We applied the comprehensive fidelity model developed by the National Institutes of Health’s Behavior Change Consortium to examine how our intervention met the fidelity requirements under five categories. Data came from a two-arm parallel cluster RCT. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses of the ACDC intervention using the comprehensive fidelity model indicated that the level of fidelity in this study did not reach 100%. However, it was approaching a high level of treatment fidelity. Participants also expressed high levels of satisfaction (M = 3.65, SD = .95). This analysis is important to show how appropriately the intervention was implemented, areas for improvement to increase its fidelity, and to ensure the internal and external validity of the findings. Trial Registration: ISRCTN registry ISRCTN19700389. Registered 6 October 2015. https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN19700389. Full Protocol: 10.1186/s12888-016-0954-y