Evaluation of Indicated Preventive Intervention (Secondary Prevention) Mental Health Programs for Children and Adolescents

Abstract

Evaluated the outcomes of 130 indicated preventive interventions (secondary prevention) mental health programs for children and adolescents that seek to identify early signs of maladjustment and to intervene before full-blown disorders develop. Results indicate such programs significantly reduce problems and significantly increase competencies. In particular, behavioral and cognitive-behavior programs for children with subclinical disorders (mean ESs in the 0.50s) appear as effective as psychotherapy for children with established problems and more effective than attempts to prevent adolescent smoking alcohol use, and delinquency. In practical terms, the average participant receiving behavioral or cognitive-behavior intervention surpasses the performance of approximately 70% of those in a control group. Of particular interest was the high mean effect (0.72) achieved by programs targeting incipient externalizing problems which are customarily the least amenable to change via traditional psychotherapeutic efforts when they reach clinical levels. Priorities for future research include greater specification of intervention procedures, assessment of treatment implementation, more follow-up studies, and identifying how different participants respond to early intervention.

Early Detection of Psychosocial Problems in Children Aged 5 to 6 Years by Preventive Child Healthcare: Has It Improved?

“…3,4 Early detection and treatment may ameliorate the prognosis of these children. 5,6 Community pediatric services, offering routine healthcare services to the population as a whole, are important for the early identification of psychosocial problems in children not yet receiving treatment. In the Netherlands, this early identification is a routine task for the Preventive Child Healthcare (PCH) system.…”

Early Findings of Preventive Child Healthcare Professionals Predict Psychosocial Problems in Preadolescence: The TRAILS Study

“…Several reviews have emphasized the need for early detection and subsequent adequate treatment to prevent negative health effects. [7][8][9] Community pediatric services that offer routine healthcare services to the young population as a whole, such as those in the United States and Europe, occupy a unique position in terms of early detection of psychosocial problems in children. In the Netherlands, preventive child healthcare (PCH) provides health and developmental monitoring to all Dutch children from birth until age 19, and the participation rate is more than 90%.…”

Social capital and mental health

“…Programme implementation refers to the actuality of putting a programme or intervention into practice: what the programme consists of and how it is delivered (Durlak, 1998). Details of programme implementation are typically under-reported in the published literature.…”

“…Although the majority of evaluation studies provide little or no data on implementation (Dane & Schneider, 1998;Durlak, 1998), it is clear from those studies that have monitored it that it is often variable and imperfect in field settings and that the level of implementation influences outcomes (Durlak, 1998;Domitrovich & Greenberg, 2000;Mihalic et al, 2002). Monitoring and documenting the process of programme implementation is critical to highlighting programme strengths and weaknesses, determining how and why programmes work, enhancing the validity of outcome evaluation and providing feedback for continuous quality improvement in programme delivery (Domitrovich & Greenberg, 2000).…”