Enhancing the mental health promotion component of a health and personal development programme in Irish schools

Abstract

This study set out to examine the impact of a health and personal development programme (the Social, Personal and Health Education Programme) which had been ‘enhanced’ by the addition of a mental health promotion component. Students aged 12–16 years attending 17 secondary schools were randomly allocated as clusters to participate in either the standard programme (SP) or the enhanced programme (EP). Both programmes were delivered over an eight-month period. Questionnaires assessing help-seeking, emotional and behavioural difficulties and students’ views of school social environment were completed by students in both groups at pre-intervention, post-intervention and at six-month follow-up. One thousand and seventy-two students participated. Analyses were carried out on the 782 students (72.9%) for whom data were available at all three time points. Both groups showed improvement over time in terms of emotional and behavioural difficulties, with male students identified as ‘at risk’ in the EP showing significantly greater improvements than males ‘at risk’ in the SP. Although there were few differences in outcomes between the groups, males identified as ‘at risk’ appeared to benefit selectively from the EP.

Review of mental health promotion interventions in schools

“…Six studies reported a clear theory underpinning the intervention, and two described the theoretical position of the methodology; two of the studies made no explicit reference to theory. Mostly, studies were underpinned by the framework of a whole-school approach and/or a child-centred approach to mental health promotion [1, 11, 16, 21, 32], although the underpinning theoretical framework was not always clear in the way it was described. Neilsen et al [32] integrated this whole–school approach framework in the intervention evaluation with an Action Competence focus, linking democracy, participation and empowerment [7].…”

Systematic Review of Universal Resilience-Focused Interventions Targeting Child and Adolescent Mental Health in the School Setting

“…However, it may be possible to improve the accuracy of reporting of mental health problems in such trials through multi-informant data collection. 34,99,106 Using the GRADE approach, the overall quality of evidence was moderate for all mental health problem outcomes except depressive symptoms, which was downgraded to low. These ratings were a result of methodological limitations of included trials, such as lack of blinding of participants and outcome assessment, and incomplete outcome data, in addition to potential publication bias in the case of the outcome of depressive symptoms.…”

Enhancing the Emotional and Social Skills of the Youth to Promote their Wellbeing and Positive Development: A Systematic Review of Universal School-based Randomized Controlled Trials

“…Out of these, 12 (54%) studies were conducted in USA [32, 42-44 (study 1 and 2), 45, 55-60], 3 (14%) in Europe [ 20 , 46 , 47 ] and 7 (32%) in other countries (Australia, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand) [ 48 - 54 ].…”

“…Life Skills Training (LST) was the kind of intervention tested in 13 (59%) trials [ 20 , 32 , 42 - 44 , 46 , 48 - 51 , 56 , 58 ]. Among them, 5 (38.5%) were conducted by testing effectiveness of LST on healthy behaviours without assessing social and psychological skills as secondary outcomes or mediators [32, 44 (study 1 and 2), 56, 58].…”

“…From this perspective, extensive research in school, community, and clinical settings has led several authors to offer recommendations for effective school-based interventions on emotional and social skills to promote positive youth development, mental health and wellbeing [ 9 , 12 , 17 , 18 ]. These interventions include a whole school approach, in which multi-component interventions involve students, teachers, the school environment and the community by participatory ways whereby everyone, driven by common purposes, can give their own contribution from different points of view and roles, with continuous implementation for more than one year [ 18 - 20 ]. Furthermore, research shows four recommended practices – Sequenced, Active, Focused, Explicit - to implement good programs under the acronym SAFE [ 9 ].…”