Commentary: Bridging the gap between emerging harms and evidence-based care: a commentary on Bucci et al. (2025)

Bucci et al. (Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 13, 1) report on a thoughtfully designed feasibility trial of i-Minds, a digital intervention for youths who have been exposed to technology-assisted sexual abuse. The study represents an important step toward addressing an emerging and deeply concerning threat to youth mental health. More broadly, it highlights a familiar challenge for intervention scientists: how to make go/no-go decisions about larger clinical trials based on small feasibility studies, and how to balance careful, evidence-based treatment development with the urgent public health need for intervention. This tension is especially salient as new harms associated with the internet emerge faster than intervention evaluation can respond. To address this, we suggest balancing urgency with rigor by employing efficient evaluation strategies, including Bayesian analysis to quantify clinically meaningful effects, target trial emulation to create treatment-versus-control comparisons, and adaptive trial designs that allow for refining interventions mid-trial.