Depression Science Fair Project????

[chynnhrrs_777]

For my science fair project I'm going to ask "What is the best way to treat depression?" My hypothesis is that lifestyle changes are the best method. I'm not sure how to conduct a fair experiment for this project. I want the project to be really good, but I need help. Your help will be greatly appreciated! Please post AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!! My project is due late February/early March
Thanks.

[MelissaB]

Hi,

I think you need to talk to your teacher about this project; depression is a very serious condition and should be treated by a medical professional, so you might not be able to do the kind of experiment you were probably thinking about (taking already-depressed people and giving them different treatments?) unless you were to work with a mentor who treats depression (which might be very difficult to do because of patient confidentiality laws). However, there are still projects you can do that are in line with your interests! At this time of year you might consider doing something designed to treat SADD (seasonal affective depressive disorder). For example, you could take your class, give them a questionnaire about their feelings (there are several standard questionnaires used to recognize depression), and then assign them to different groups--in one, perhaps you could ask people to put a grow-lamp in their room, in another, you could ask them to get 30 min of exercise a day, and in one do nothing--then compare their feelings before and after a week or a month of this treatment. Note that you would need large numbers of people in each group since there will probably be a large amount of variation from person to person, and you wouldn't specifically be working with depressed people.

Alternatively, you could do a research project where you look up articles written by medical professionals who have attempted to treat depression/interview psychologists and psychiatrists, etc. I don't know if this would satisfy the requirements of your science fair, though, so I suggest you speak to your teacher if you are interested in doing something like that.

Hope this helps--good luck!

[deleted-71447]

Hi chynnhrrs_777,
I agree with Melissa about the problems of using human subjects, and I will add my 2 cents. There are ethical and liability issues that could be quite serious. I recommend that you review these rules for use of human subjects in science fairs following ISEF guidelines:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ects.shtml
For an ISEF compliant science fair, any experiment dealing with modification of behavior of human subjects would require approval by an Institutional Review Board (IRB). To gain approval from an IRB (or from your teacher), you might need to avoid associations with long-term medical conditions related to mental health (such as depression), and instead focus on more benign and short-term aspects of your subjects' mental condition, for example, their short term mood following some activity (e.g. sun lamp versus jogging).

I hope that helps. Good luck!

Chris