None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Mental health disorders bear a significant burden on the health and well-being of young people in Australia and worldwide. Prevention during adolescence is critical for reducing immediate related harms but also preventing the development and onset of chronic mental health disorders through adulthood. The current study aims to evaluate the efficacy of an updated version of the OurFutures Mental Health program by conducting a two-arm cluster randomised controlled trial (RCT) with Year 8 students from 14 secondary schools in NSW. OurFutures Mental Health is a six-lesson, online cartoon-based intervention. It draws on cognitive-behavioural principles and incorporates psychoeducation and self-management and interpersonal skill acquisition. The intervention aims to increase mental health knowledge and, for those who report anxiety and depression symptoms at baseline, reduce anxiety and depression symptoms. This module also aims to improve important secondary social, emotional, and behavioural outcomes, including general well-being and help-seeking. The OurFutures Mental Health module is in the process of being refined to be more LGBTQ+ inclusive and trauma-informed. This cluster randomised controlled trial will involve 7 secondary schools allocated to receive the OurFutures Mental Health intervention, and 7 secondary schools allocated to a control condition who will receive their usual health education curriculum as usual (N=1400 secondary school students). Students will be followed-up for 1 year, with surveys at baseline, and 6- and 12-months. We hypothesise that compared to students in control schools, students in intervention schools will show: i) improved mental health knowledge at 3-months post-baseline ii) reduced depressive symptoms at 3-months post-baseline iii) reduced anxiety symptoms at 3-months post-baseline. We further hypothesise that: iv) compared to students in control schools who report elevated symptoms of depression and/or anxiety at baseline, students in intervention schools who report symptoms of depression and/or anxiety at baseline will show reduced depressive symptoms and reduced anxiety symptoms at 3-months post-baseline
Interventions
Intervention name: OurFutures Mental Health
OurFutures Mental Health is a six-lesson, online intervention. It draws on cognitive-behavioural principles and incorporates psychoeducation and self-management and interpersonal skill acquisition. The intervention aims to increase mental health knowledge and, for those who report anxiety and depression symptoms at baseline, reduce anxiety and depression symptoms. This module also aims to improve important secondary social, emotional, and behavioural
Intervention name: OurFutures Mental Health OurFutures Mental Health is a six-lesson, online intervention. It draws on cognitive-behavioural principles and incorporates psychoeducation and self-management and interpersonal skill acquisition. The intervention aims to increase mental health knowledge and, for those who report anxiety and depression symptoms at baseline, reduce anxiety and depression symptoms. This module also aims to improve important secondary social, emotional, and behavioural outcomes, including general well-being and help-seeking. Each lesson comprises two components: a 20-minute online cartoon component completed individually by students, followed by a 20-minute teacher-delivered group activity which reinforces cartoon content and facilitates interactive classroom discussion. The first part of each lesson is completed individually over the internet. During this part of the lesson students are engaged through cartoon story lines that impart information about mental health problems, normative feelings of being anxious or feeling down, identifying and effectively dealing with anxiety and depression symptoms. The cartoons follow a group of Australian school students, who are navigating daily life and mental health concerns. The second part of each lesson is a group or class activity delivered by the teacher, and reinforces the information in the cartoons, while allowing interactive communication between students. Teachers are provided with a training manual containing the activities, implementation guidelines, links to the education syllabus and summaries for each lesson. This training manual was designed specifically for this study. These 6 x 40-minute lessons will be delivered at school, over the course of a school term (i.e., 10 weeks). For each lesson, teachers will complete a logbook to assess adherence and fidelity to the intervention. Student adherence to the cartoons will be automatically captured by the online cartoon portal. A previous version of the OurFutures Mental Health module was administered in a separate study (ACTRN12613000723785). The cartoons are currently being updated through focus groups and consultations with young people and experts to increase their relevancy to students from diverse backgrounds. In particular, the refined OurFutures Mental Health intervention will reflect the experiences and feelings of LGBTQ+ young people, and young people exposed to adverse childhood experiences (i.e., trauma-informed).
Sponsors
The University of Sydney
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Prevention
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
11 Years to 15 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
Inclusion criteria include i) Year 8 students attending participating schools in 2023; ii) fluent in English; iii) provision of active informed consent; iv) provision of opt-out parental consent. Trial sites (schools) must: i) Be a secondary or combined primary and secondary school in NSW, and ii) Have school principal permission to participate in the trial
Exclusion criteria
Exclusion criteria include i) schools with <70 Year 8 students.
Outcome results
None listed