Texas Youth Depression and Suicide Network (TX-YDSRN) Research Registry and Learning Healthcare System: Rationale, Design, and Baseline Characteristics

Funded by the Texas State Legislature as a part of the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium, TX-YDSRN was created to gain a deeper understanding of depression and suicidality in Texas youth. This article summarizes the purpose of TX-YDSRN, details its start-up procedures, and describes the baseline data collected from the first 1000 participants. By leveraging the 12 major health-related academic institutions across Texas, TX-YDSRN recruited an ethnically and racially diverse pool of participants between 8 and 20 years of age. After initial screening, qualified participants completed a baseline appointment, a 1-month follow-up, and 12 bi-monthly follow-ups that included self-report measures and clinician clinician-guided assessments. Most (79.7%) of the participants had a primary diagnosis of depression, while 7.6% had bipolar disorder, 4.6% had suicidality or suicide behavior disorder, and 5.2% had primary anxiety, OCD, or PTSD. Just under half of all participants reported having at least one suicide attempt in their lifetime. The next steps for the TX-YDSRN project are also discussed. The collected data will help to create a valuable body of knowledge that will be used to create screening tools and treatment protocols that address persistent mental health concerns of Texas youth.