Fostering Adolescent Mental Well-being: Effectiveness and Moderators of a Preventive Mental Health Literacy Program in the School Context
Tracks
Ballroom 2 - In Person Only
| Wednesday, March 20, 2024 |
| 1:05 PM - 1:25 PM |
Overview
Shari J. Dudda, Goethe University Frankfurt, Competence Centre School Psychology Hesse
Details
Presentation Key Learnings:
1. The school-based prevention program "Mental Health and High School Curriculum Guide" aims to promote adolescents' mental well-being by increasing their mental health literacy, encompassing knowledge, reducing stigma, and promoting help-seeking behavior.
2. Preliminary findings indicate the program's significant impact on improving mental health knowledge and reducing stigma associated with mental illness.
3. Ongoing research seeks to address the question of "What works for whom under which conditions?" by examining potential moderating factors to provide insights for school psychological practices.
Speaker
M.Sc. Psych. Shari J. Dudda
Research Associate & PhD Candidate
Goethe University Frankfurt
Fostering Adolescent Mental Well-being: Effectiveness and Moderators of a Preventive Mental Health Literacy Program in the School Context
Abstract
Study background:
The school based prevention program “Mental Health and High School Curriculum Guide” aims at the promotion of adolescents' mental well-being by increasing mental health literacy (MHL; components = knowledge, reduced stigmatizing attitudes, help-seeking behaviour). It was originally developed by Kutcher (2015) in Canada in 2009 and adapted for Germany in 2019. The research team involved in adapting the program for the German school context reported on the effectiveness of the intervention delivered by trained teachers (Kirchhoff et al., 2021). The present study builds on this work by investigating the effectiveness of the program delivered by school psychologists in a larger sample of students and examines potential moderating variables.
Methods:
Adolescents in grades eight to eleven were allocated at class level to the intervention or business as usual control group. Using a pre, post, follow-up design, the impact of the intervention on the three MHL components are investigated. Additionally, moderating effects of age, gender, school type, and previous contact with mental disorders are analysed. The study protocol is pre-registered (OSF: https://osf.io/vq5e8?view_only=6bcf7db4df7743bdbff5357c89a7aa80). Multilevel and liner mixed models are used to test our hypotheses regarding the effectiveness of the program and to run analyses on potential moderators.
Implications:
The data collection started in March 2022 and is aimed to be completed by December 2023. To date, data of 85 classes (1481 students) have been collected. There have been several evaluation studies providing evidence on the effectiveness of the program to increase MHL in adolescents in Canada (Kutcher et al., 2015; Milin et al., 2016) as well as in other countries (e.g. Tanzania: Kutcher et al., 2017; Nicaragua: Ravindran et al., 2018). Outcomes of multiple regression models can serve as an evidence-base indicating if moderating variables potentially provide approaches to increase the effectiveness of the program.
References: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15fXsZ5YT4y0KNiOEFPvRj6FnlV9fwzE_IgH0-my4a9c/edit
The school based prevention program “Mental Health and High School Curriculum Guide” aims at the promotion of adolescents' mental well-being by increasing mental health literacy (MHL; components = knowledge, reduced stigmatizing attitudes, help-seeking behaviour). It was originally developed by Kutcher (2015) in Canada in 2009 and adapted for Germany in 2019. The research team involved in adapting the program for the German school context reported on the effectiveness of the intervention delivered by trained teachers (Kirchhoff et al., 2021). The present study builds on this work by investigating the effectiveness of the program delivered by school psychologists in a larger sample of students and examines potential moderating variables.
Methods:
Adolescents in grades eight to eleven were allocated at class level to the intervention or business as usual control group. Using a pre, post, follow-up design, the impact of the intervention on the three MHL components are investigated. Additionally, moderating effects of age, gender, school type, and previous contact with mental disorders are analysed. The study protocol is pre-registered (OSF: https://osf.io/vq5e8?view_only=6bcf7db4df7743bdbff5357c89a7aa80). Multilevel and liner mixed models are used to test our hypotheses regarding the effectiveness of the program and to run analyses on potential moderators.
Implications:
The data collection started in March 2022 and is aimed to be completed by December 2023. To date, data of 85 classes (1481 students) have been collected. There have been several evaluation studies providing evidence on the effectiveness of the program to increase MHL in adolescents in Canada (Kutcher et al., 2015; Milin et al., 2016) as well as in other countries (e.g. Tanzania: Kutcher et al., 2017; Nicaragua: Ravindran et al., 2018). Outcomes of multiple regression models can serve as an evidence-base indicating if moderating variables potentially provide approaches to increase the effectiveness of the program.
References: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15fXsZ5YT4y0KNiOEFPvRj6FnlV9fwzE_IgH0-my4a9c/edit
Biography
Shari Dudda is a PhD candidate at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany, holding bachelor's and master's degrees in psychology from Philipps University, Marburg, Germany, with a semester abroad at Aarhus University, Denmark. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked as an ABA co-therapist and care professional for autism, ADHD, and ODD in the San Francisco Bay Area, USA. Currently, she is a research associate at the Competence Centre School Psychology Hesse (Goethe University). Her research focuses on mental health literacy, encompassing the evaluation of prevention programs promoting students' mental health along with evidence synthesis methodologies and the validation of measurement tools.
