Social media-based interventions for adolescent and young adult mental health: A scoping review

Social media interventions to improve well-being

Concerns about the negative effect of social media on well-being have generated much interest around the development of social media interventions, which aim to change users' interactions with social media to improve well-being. To aid the effective study and design of such interventions, we introduce a new theoretical approach, guided by self-determination theory. We review current interventions and categorize them by the context in which they intervene: social media platforms, devices, users, families and society. Drawing on established behavioural change models, we then evaluate how social media use affects the core psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness. We propose theoretically grounded design features that can be applied to maximize the effectiveness of future interventions. In response to the increasing calls for interventions to counteract social media risks, our recommendations will inform future research in academia and industry, with practical applications to enhance well-being in this digital age.

Time Spent on Social Media and the Risk of Substance Use Among US Adolescents

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Adolescence is a period marked by increased risk of substance use and extensive social media engagement. Investigating the link between social media usage and substance use among adolescents is crucial for developing effective interventions and public health policies.

METHODS

This study utilized data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) study, focusing on adolescents aged between 12 and 17 years old who reported no substance use at Wave 2. Participants were followed from Wave 2 through Wave 5. At baseline (Wave 2), daily time spent on social media use was reported, and past 30-day (P30D) substance use (e.g., alcohol, tobacco products, marijuana, and non-med drug use) was assessed in subsequent waves (Waves 3-5). Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) models were used to analyze self-reported daily time spent on social media and P30D substance use, adjusting for demographic and time-varying covariates.

RESULTS

The study included 4769 adolescents, with nearly half identifying as male (47.0%) and as non-Hispanic white (49.1%). Over 75% of participants reported spending at least 30 min on social media daily. In adjusted models, a dose-response relationship was observed between time spent on social media and the odds of subsequent tobacco use. For alcohol and marijuana use, the association followed a curvilinear pattern, with the highest odds among adolescents who spent 30 min to 3 h per day on social media. For nonmedical drug use, a significant association was observed only for those spending 3-6 h on social media daily, who had nearly twice the odds of nonmedical drug use, compared to non-users.

CONCLUSIONS

The present study is among the first to quantify the association between daily time spent on social media and the risk of using substances, such as alcohol, cannabis, tobacco products, and illicit drugs in the US adolescent cohort. Social media could be leveraged for targeted interventions and public health initiatives aimed at reducing substance use in this population.

Digital Phenotyping Measurement of Smartphone Social Behavior is Associated with Illness Progression Risk Scores in Young People at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis

BACKGROUND

Young people at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR-p) commonly experience social impairment, which contributes to functional decline and predicts transition to psychotic illness. Although the use of smart phone technology and social media platforms for social interaction is widespread among today's youth, it is unclear whether aberrant digital social interactions contribute to risk for conversion and functional impairment in CHR-p. The current study sought to characterize the nature of social smartphone and social media use in a CHR-p sample and determine its association with clinical symptoms and risk for conversion to psychosis.

STUDY DESIGN

CHR-p (n = 132) and HC (n = 61) participants completed clinical interviews and 6 days of digital phenotyping that monitored total smartphone use, ratio of outgoing to incoming text messages and phone calls, social media use, and ecological momentary assessment surveys focused on in-person and electronic social interactions. Study Results: CHR-p did not differ from HC in total smartphone use for social communication or active social media use. However, CHR-p participants reported significantly less daily passive social media use compared to HC peers, and decreased text message reciprocity predicted 1- and 2-year conversion risk.

CONCLUSIONS

Results demonstrate a nuanced digital social landscape with divergent relationships from in-person social behavior and suggest online socialization has implications for high-precision identification and intervention strategies among the CHR-p population.

Using Social Media to Promote Life Skills Among Adolescents: A Debate on Opportunities, Challenges, and Implications for Health and Education

The digitalization of society increasingly blurs boundaries between analog and digital worlds, offering opportunities such as telemedicine and global connectivity through digital platforms. However, it also presents risks, including cyberbullying, addiction potential, harmful content, misinformation, and privacy concerns from data breaches and surveillance technologies. Social media, with its global reach, amplifies both opportunities for positive engagement and the responsibility to navigate largely unregulated content. Adolescents, due to their developing critical evaluation skills and high prevalence of mental health challenges, are particularly vulnerable in this space and must navigate the risks associated with social media while simultaneously leveraging it for essential developmental tasks, such as identity formation and building social connections. To support them in this challenge, we propose adapting the traditional life skills approach to address the challenges of social media use, empowering adolescents to navigate both digital and analog environments effectively. These life skills include critical thinking, communication, and managing emotions and stress - all of which are essential for navigating social media. Despite its complexities, social media offers a unique platform for health promotion and prevention interventions due to its wide accessibility and reach. It holds significant promise for adolescent health by providing information, motivation, and social support. However, evidence-based, youth-centered prevention strategies on these platforms are still in early development and require further research to ensure effectiveness. Prevention programs integrating proven behavior change techniques, aligning with the preferences and needs of adolescents, and teaching essential life skills can empower them to navigate digital and analog challenges effectively.

Mothers Time: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effects of a Community-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Intervention on Postpartum Mental Health and Family Planning in Northwest Ethiopia

Depression and anxiety symptoms are associated with increased unmet need for family planning (FP) postpartum, yet solutions promoting the integration of mental health into FP service settings remain scarce. The aims of this study were to quantitatively examine the immediate and longer term effects of participation in a group-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) intervention called Mothers Time on (1) symptoms of depression and anxiety, (2) the use of a modern family planning method, and (3) intermediate FP-related factors among postpartum women in Ethiopia. Building from lessons learned during a feasibility study, we implemented a cluster randomized controlled design, with structured interviews delivered before (baseline), immediately following (endline), and fourxst months after implementation of the intervention (follow-up). A total of 302 postpartum women were recruited from 10 health clusters in northwest Ethiopia. In comparison to control clusters where participants received standard of care, intervention clusters showed significantly greater reductions in symptoms for both depression and anxiety from baseline to follow-up. Modern FP use also increased significantly more in intervention clusters as compared to control clusters from baseline to follow-up. Results suggest that more holistic FP services that consider postpartum mental health can both reduce postpartum depression and anxiety and support women in fulfilling their reproductive intentions.

Social connection interventions and depression in young adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis

PURPOSE

Early adulthood is a period which may increase vulnerability to loneliness and mental health difficulties among young adults. Social networks play an important role in buffering against adverse mental health, but there is a lack of evidence around whether social connection interventions could play a role in preventing mental health difficulties for young adults.

METHODS

A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted (PROSPERO ID: CRD42023395595). PubMed, PsycInfo, and Scopus were searched (01 January 2000-01 January 2023). Studies were eligible if they (i) were quantitative, (ii) included young adults (18-24 years) from the general population, (iii) tested a social intervention which aimed to increase the quantity or quality of social connections or reduce loneliness, (iv) had a comparison group, and (v) measured depression and loneliness/social connection as outcomes. Following study screening and selection, the data extraction and risk of bias assessments were independently conducted in duplicate. The Cochrane RoB-2 tool and ROBINS-I tool were used to assess risk of bias. Results were narratively synthesised and random effects meta-analysis with standardised mean differences was conducted.

RESULTS

Six studies were included; four in-person interventions with higher education students, one online intervention with higher education students, and one intervention for youth involved in street life. The studies were mostly rated as having some or moderate concerns with risk of bias. The interventions were associated with an overall mean reduction in depression for young adults (SMD = -0.19; 95% CI, -0.33 to -0.05; p = 0.008; 4 studies, excluding studies with serious risk of bias). All interventions had beneficial effects on a range of diverse social connection outcomes, but there was no overall statistically significant mean reduction in loneliness for young adults in pooled analyses (SMD = -0.10; 95% CI, -0.24 to 0.05; p = 0.188; 3 studies).

CONCLUSION

Social connection interventions show some promise in improving depression and social connection outcomes in young adults but more high-quality research, across diverse settings, is needed in this area.

TikTok and teen mental health: an analysis of user-generated content and engagement

BACKGROUND

TikTok is a social media mobile application that is widely used by adolescents, and has the potential to serve as a revolutionary platform for public and mental health discourse, education, and intervention.

OBJECTIVE

Our study aimed to describe the content and engagement metrics of the hashtag #teenmentalhealth on TikTok.

METHODS

In this study, we: (a) conducted a directed content analysis of the Top 100 TikTok videos tagged with #teenmentalhealth, and (b) collected data on video engagements (views, likes, saves, and shares) and computed view-based engagement rates.

RESULTS

The videos collectively garnered 144,320,591 views; 28,289,655 likes; 219,780 comments; 1,971,492 saves; and 478,696 shares. Most of the generated content were from teens and therapists. Engagement metrics revealed strong user engagement rates across user types. The most prevalent content categories represented across videos were personal experience, coping techniques or treatment, humor, interpersonal relationships, and health campaign. The content categories with the highest engagement rates were relatable media representation, health campaign, social isolation, and humor. Only a single video incorporated evidence-based treatment content.

CONCLUSION

TikTok facilitates communication and information dissemination on teen mental health. Future research should focus on improving the quality and credibility of digital content while maintaining engagement through creativity, self-expression, and relatability. Use of popular social media platforms and community-engaged research to disseminate evidence-based content may help bridge the translational research gap.

Social Media-Based Brief Video Interventions to Support Youths' Mental Health

Social media platforms are communication forums with potential benefits and disadvantages for youths' mental health. In this column, the author focuses on two main themes. First, recognizing the need for carefully crafted interventions, the author advocates for the use of crowdsourcing platforms to test and refine social media-based video content. These platforms enable the development of engaging, safe, and stigma-reducing videos tailored to meet the needs of diverse youths. Second, the author proposes the establishment of strategic frameworks designed to empower youths to produce and share these videos effectively, enhancing the positive effect of social media on mental health discourse.

Cross-Sectional Evaluation of Health Insurance Knowledge and Self-Efficacy in Adolescents and Young Adults with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the status of health insurance knowledge and self-efficacy among adolescents and young adults with inflammatory bowel disease (AYA-IBD).

STUDY DESIGN

English-proficient AYA-IBD ≥15 years receiving care at an academic pediatric practice were invited to perform the Kaiser Family Foundation survey on health information knowledge and the Health Insurance Literacy Measure. Analyses of responses by demographic factors were performed using nonparametric analyses and agreement analyses were performed to compare survey responses.

RESULTS

Fifty AYA-IBD (60% 15-17 years old; 54% male; 76% White; 32% Hispanic) completed the surveys. Most AYA-IBD (58%) answered less than half the health insurance knowledge questions correctly. Reported ability and confidence in choosing and using health insurance was slight to moderate (median 2.8 on Likert scale of 1 [not at all confident] to 4 [very confident]). While health insurance knowledge scores did not vary by demographic factors, total health insurance self-efficacy increased with disease duration, and Hispanic participants reported reduced ability to select health insurance than non-Hispanic counterparts.

CONCLUSIONS

AYA-IBD demonstrated suboptimal health insurance knowledge and self-efficacy. Our findings identify an important opportunity to provide health insurance education to help prepare all AYA-IBD to manage the costs of medical care during the transition process to adulthood.

Digital Mental Health Interventions for Adolescents in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Scoping Review

BACKGROUND

Digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) are increasingly recognized as potential solutions for adolescent mental health, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals and universal health coverage are instrumental tools for achieving mental health for all. Within this context, understanding the design, evaluation, as well as the barriers and facilitators impacting adolescent engagement with mental health care through DMHIs is essential.

OBJECTIVE

This scoping review aims to provide insights into the current landscape of DMHIs for adolescents in LMICs.

METHODS

The Joanna Briggs Institute scoping review methodology was used, following the recommendations of the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews). Our search strategy incorporated 3 key concepts: population "adolescents," concept "digital mental health interventions," and context "LMICs." We adapted this strategy for various databases, including ACM Digital Library, APA PsycINFO, Cochrane Library, Google Scholar (including gray literature), IEEE Xplore, ProQuest, PubMed (NLM), ScienceDirect, Scopus, and Web of Science. The articles were screened against a specific eligibility criterion from January 2019 to March 2024.

RESULTS

We analyzed 20 papers focusing on DMHIs for various mental health conditions among adolescents, such as depression, well-being, anxiety, stigma, self-harm, and suicide ideation. These interventions were delivered in diverse formats, including group delivery and self-guided interventions, with support from mental health professionals or involving lay professionals. The study designs and evaluation encompassed a range of methodologies, including randomized controlled trials, mixed methods studies, and feasibility studies.

CONCLUSIONS

While there have been notable advancements in DMHIs for adolescents in LMICs, the research base remains limited. Significant knowledge gaps persist regarding the long-term clinical benefits, the maturity and readiness of LMIC digital infrastructure, cultural appropriateness, and cost-effectiveness across the heterogeneous LMIC settings. Addressing these gaps necessitates large-scale, co-designed, and culturally sensitive DMHI trials. Future work should address this.

Body, image, and digital technology in adolescence and contemporary youth culture

The physical, psychological and social changes that occur during adolescence constitute a physiological crisis that is necessary for development and growth. The establishment of a suitable "self-image" is important for facilitating harmonious psychophysical development during this time. In the current era, digital technology (DT) serves as an extraordinary means of communication for young people, who make significant use of images as a mode of expression. Accordingly, there is growing interest in the relationship between physical development, self-image and use of DT. A review of the published literature on the topic was carried out in April 2024. Fourteen studies (n = 14) were inclused from search of electronic databases such as PubMed, CINAHL, PsycInfo, MedLine, and Cochrane Library. The aim of this study is to explore the influence of (DT) on cultural models of adolescent body image, and how this "social" culture can affect wellbeing and development. It was considered that the rise of DT and social media (SM) emphasized in young people the culture of appearance, adherence to ideal models (thinness ideal) and social comparison at an unprecedented level. It was estimated that the digital mechanism works on the adolescent's vulnerability and stimulates the desire for experimentation and amplifies cultural beliefs that expose the young to deviant or pathological behaviors on the body. The use of digital images emphasizes the perception of self by making it more real and alive but empty of content. Our framework highlights that the adolescent can defend himself if he leaves the homologation that the SM condition, regains his own experiences, fill with emotional content and real life the images and the representation of the body.

Leveraging Instagram to Engage Adolescents With Depression: The Use of Evidence-Based Brief Video Interventions

Recent research underscores the vital role social media can play in enhancing mental health awareness and encouraging help-seeking behaviors among youth. Nevertheless, the inherent risks of social media highlight the need for the careful creation of safe, effective content. This editorial outlines our strategy of using crowdsourcing platforms to develop and refine video interventions before launching a targeted Instagram campaign featuring these evidence-based videos. This process ensures the content is both beneficial and secure prior to public exposure. We emphasize the necessity of such meticulous preparation in leveraging social media to foster a supportive environment for adolescents seeking mental health help. Our approach and ongoing adjustments offer guidance for future initiatives aimed at promoting the well-being of young digital users.

The ABCD and HBCD Studies: Longitudinal Studies to Inform Prevention Science

Increasing rates of overdose among U.S. adolescents and young adults, along with rising rates of emotional distress in these groups, are renewing the urgency for developmentally targeted and personalized substance use and other mental health prevention interventions. Most prevention programs recognize the unique vulnerability of childhood and adolescence and target parents and youths, addressing modifiable environmental risk and protective factors that affect behavior during periods when the brain is most susceptible to change. Until recently, a scarcity of comprehensive studies has limited a full understanding of the complexity of factors that may affect neurodevelopment, including substance exposure in pregnancy and/or subsequent substance use in adolescence, alongside their dynamic interactions with environmental factors and genetics. Two large longitudinal cohort studies funded by National Institutes of Health-the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study and the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study-are collecting data on neurodevelopment and a wide range of environmental and biological factors across the first two decades of life to build databases that will allow researchers to study how individual neurodevelopmental trajectories are influenced by drugs, adverse childhood experiences, and genetics, among other factors. These studies are already deepening the understanding of risk and resilience factors that prevention programs could target and will identify critical windows where interventions can have the most impact on an individual's neurodevelopmental trajectory. This article describes what is being learned from ABCD and expected from HBCD and how these studies might inform prevention as these children grow and more data are gathered.

Leveraging Digital Media to Promote Youth Mental Health: Flipping the Script on Social Media-Related Risk

Purpose of Review

Despite growing public concern about the negative impact of digital media for mental health problems, there are key ways in which digital media can be leveraged to prevent such outcomes. This article reviews research exploring the ways that digital media, particularly social media, can be used to prevent negative mental health outcomes and promote youth mental health and well-being.

Recent findings

Research indicates that media can be protective against mental health problems and promote mental health by enabling social support and destigmatizing mental illness, especially for youth with limited resources. Media also can be leveraged to identify those at risk, to educate, provide resources, and promote well-being, and to track symptoms and intervene to prevent or mitigate negative mental health outcomes. There is limited research on interventions designed to reduce the negative effects of digital media on mental health, especially those that harness media itself, a critical area of future research.

Summary

This article provides a summary of the current evidence on this topic, highlights key directions for future research, and provides evidence-based recommendations for adolescents, families, educators, clinicians, industry, and policy-makers to prevent mental health problems related to media.

Fostering Digital Life Skills Through Social Media With Adolescents in 6 German States: Protocol for an Accessibility Study According to the RE-AIM Framework

BACKGROUND

Social media is essential in the lives of adolescents, with 97% of US teenagers engaging daily. While it facilitates communication, learning, and identity development, it also poses risks like harmful content exposure and psychological distress, particularly for adolescents in their critical developmental stage. Teaching digital life skills innovatively counters these risks, adapting traditional competencies such as decision-making, problem-solving, creative and critical thinking, communication, interpersonal skills, self-awareness, empathy, and emotional and stress management to digital challenges.

OBJECTIVE

This study evaluates the accessibility of the "leduin" program, a novel intervention designed to impart digital life skills through Instagram. The program aims to leverage social media's educational potential, focusing on effective strategies to engage adolescents. Emphasizing accessibility is crucial, as it determines the program's overall impact.

METHODS

The leduin program, developed through intervention mapping, applies behavior change techniques via social media for 9th and 10th graders. It is a 14-week spaced learning curriculum with daily sessions <5 minutes. Emphasizing the "reach" aspect of the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance (RE-AIM) model, the recruitment targets diverse educational settings across 6 German states, aiming for inclusivity. Recruitment will involve schools, youth centers, and therapeutic facilities. The study seeks at least 128 participants, a calculated minimum to detect medium-sized effects in the quasi-experimental design and explore varying engagement levels and program responses. Data collection includes preintervention, postintervention, and 6-month follow-up surveys, using multilevel regression, latent growth models, and qualitative analysis to extensively assess reach and gain first insights on effectiveness, acceptance, implementation, and maintenance. The study aims to reveal key factors influencing program participation and interaction; a detailed analysis of engagement patterns will reveal the effectiveness of the recruitment strategies and barriers to participation. Additionally, initial indications of the program's impact on life skills, social media-related skills, health status, risk behaviors, and academic performance will be analyzed.

RESULTS

Recruitment was planned from May 2023 until the beginning of the leduin program in October 2023. As of March 2024, we have recruited 283 participants.

CONCLUSIONS

The leduin program stands as an innovative and essential initiative in adolescent health promotion, harnessing the power of social media to teach important digital life skills. This study highlights the critical role of accessibility in the success of social media interventions. Effective adolescent engagement strategies are imperative, as they dictate the overall impact of such interventions. The insights gained from this study will be instrumental in shaping future programs, laying groundwork for a subsequent, more comprehensive cluster-randomized controlled trial. The study's design acknowledges the limitations of the current quasi-experimental approach, including the anticipated sample size and the absence of a control group, and aims to provide a foundational understanding for future research in this field.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

Deutsches Register Klinischer Studien DRKS00032308; https://drks.de/search/de/trial/DRKS00032308.

INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID)

PRR1-10.2196/51085.

Blueprint for destigmatizing depression and increasing openness to treatment among adolescents using brief social contact-based videos: a qualitative study

Background

Depression is a major public health concern for adolescents, who exhibit low rates of connection to care despite significant needs. Although barriers to help-seeking such as stigma are well documented, interventions to address stigma and to increase help-seeking behavior are insufficient. Dissemination of short videos in social media offer a promising approach, but designing effective stimuli requires better insight into adolescents' perspectives of their own experiences, barriers, and possible interventions.

Methods

We conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with adolescents recruited online via RecruitMe, a Columbia University clinical research registry, to explore their perceptions of depression stigma, barriers to care, the role of schools, and the role of brief video interventions. Thematic analysis guided our analytic approach.

Results

We developed a model consisting of three major domains: (1) Barriers to Help-Seeking, which depicts participants debating their locus of control, naming social, parental, and peer stigma, and acknowledging systemic barriers; (2) Importance of School Systems, in which participants elaborated on the role of schools filling unmet needs and the importance of being taken care of; and (3) Role of Social Media Videos, characterized by adolescents who are seeking legitimacy, finding cultural authenticity, and working towards creating an accessible blueprint for better mental healthcare.

Discussion

We provide insights into adolescents' perceptions of help-seeking for depression and what nuances they would hope to see reflected in future interventions, most notably school-based interventions and peer social media videos. Our study offers a steppingstone towards the creation of brief, social contact-based video interventions focused on destigmatizing depression and promoting openness to treatment among adolescents.

Associations and gender differences between OHI-seeking behaviors and eHealth literacy among Chinese university students

OBJECTIVE

to explore associations and gender differences between OHI-seeking (online health information seeking) behaviors and eHealth (electronic health) literacy among Chinese university students.

METHODS

Online questionnaires of eHealth literacy scale and OHI-seeking behaviors created in software Wenjunxing were used in this survey. Chi-squared tests, t-test, and Pearson correlation analysis were performed using SPSS for data analysis.

RESULTS

Among 5,383 participants, 72.4% were girls, 77.5% lived in rural areas, 51.2% majored in liberal arts, 76.6% with low education parents. The average C-eHEALS scores of boys and girls were 26.53 ± 5.861 and 26.84 ± 5.816, respectively, with no significant difference (P = 0.084). The top three OHI-seeking behaviors for boys and girls, as well as for the C-eHEALS low and high groups, were "finding information about physical exercises" "reading or sharing health information via social media" "finding information about nutrition and diet", all of which had significant gender and eHealth literacy differences.

CONCLUSIONS

Gender and eHealth literacy differences should be focused for intervention when developing and implementing eHealth intervention training for parents and adolescents in schools and communities.

Mental-LLM: Leveraging Large Language Models for Mental Health Prediction via Online Text Data

Advances in large language models (LLMs) have empowered a variety of applications. However, there is still a significant gap in research when it comes to understanding and enhancing the capabilities of LLMs in the field of mental health. In this work, we present a comprehensive evaluation of multiple LLMs on various mental health prediction tasks via online text data, including Alpaca, Alpaca-LoRA, FLAN-T5, GPT-3.5, and GPT-4. We conduct a broad range of experiments, covering zero-shot prompting, few-shot prompting, and instruction fine-tuning. The results indicate a promising yet limited performance of LLMs with zero-shot and few-shot prompt designs for mental health tasks. More importantly, our experiments show that instruction finetuning can significantly boost the performance of LLMs for all tasks simultaneously. Our best-finetuned models, Mental-Alpaca and Mental-FLAN-T5, outperform the best prompt design of GPT-3.5 (25 and 15 times bigger) by 10.9% on balanced accuracy and the best of GPT-4 (250 and 150 times bigger) by 4.8%. They further perform on par with the state-of-the-art task-specific language model. We also conduct an exploratory case study on LLMs' capability on mental health reasoning tasks, illustrating the promising capability of certain models such as GPT-4. We summarize our findings into a set of action guidelines for potential methods to enhance LLMs' capability for mental health tasks. Meanwhile, we also emphasize the important limitations before achieving deployability in real-world mental health settings, such as known racial and gender bias. We highlight the important ethical risks accompanying this line of research.

Perceptions of mental health providers of the barriers and facilitators of using and engaging youth in digital mental-health-enabled measurement based care

Objectives

Increased rates of mental health disorders and substance use among youth and young adults have increased globally, furthering the strain on an already burdened mental health system. Digital solutions have been proposed as a potential option for the provision of timely mental health services for youth, with little research exploring mental health professional views about using such innovative tools. In Alberta, Canada, we are evaluating the implementation and integration of a digital mental health (dMH) platform into existing service pathways. Within this paper we seek to explore mental health professionals' perceptions of the barriers and facilitators that may influence their utilization of digital MH-enabled measurement-based care (MBC) with the youth who access their services.

Methods

A qualitative, descriptive methodology was used to inductively generate themes from focus groups conducted with mental health professionals from specialized mental health services and primary care networks in Alberta.

Results

As mental health professionals considered the barriers and facilitators of using dMH with youth, they referenced individual and family barriers and facilitators to consider. Providers highlighted perceived barriers, including: first, cultural stigma, family apprehension about mental health care, and parental access to dMH and MBC as deterrents to providers adopting digital platforms in routine care; second, perceptions of increased responsibility and liability for youth in crisis; third, perception that some psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders in youth are not amenable to dMH; fourth, professionals contemplated youth readiness to engage with dMH-enabled MBC. Participants also highlighted pertinent facilitators to dMH use, noting: first, the suitability of dMH for youth with mild mental health concerns; second, youth motivated to report their changes in mental health symptoms; and lastly, youth proficiency and preference for dMH options.

Conclusions

By identifying professionals' perceptions of barriers and facilitators for youth users, we may better understand how to address misconceptions about who is eligible and appropriate for dMH through training and education.

Social Media Use for Cancer Support Among Young Adults with Cancer

Purpose: Social media can facilitate peer support among young adults with cancer; however, information is needed about what social media are used, by whom, and how to inform resource and intervention recommendations. Methods: In December 2021, we conducted an online survey with 396 young adults with cancer, ages 18-39, with any diagnosis ages 15-39. Participants reported their social media use to connect with other young adults with cancer, including frequency of use, type of support, and affect (positive to negative) when using to connect with cancer peers. Results: Participants were on average 31 years old (SD = 5.2), with an average age of 27 at diagnosis (63.4% male, 62.1% non-Hispanic White). Almost all (97.5%) reported using social media to connect with other young adults with cancer. Many (48.0%) used three or more social media platforms for cancer support, including Facebook (44.4%), YouTube (43.6%), Instagram (43.4%), Snapchat (36.9%), and Twitter (36.9%). Daily use for cancer support was common (32.9%-60.9%) among those who used social media, particularly among those who were younger; are not transgender; live in urban areas; or had brain, gynecologic, or testicular cancers. Across social media platforms, young adults with cancer reported seeking and sharing emotional support (88.9%), informational support (84.1%), and making connections (81.3%). Conclusion: Young adults with cancer use social media to connect with cancer peers for support. Commonly used existing social media (e.g., Facebook, YouTube, Instagram) should be prioritized in interventions to reach young adults who desire more age-appropriate resources to improve their psychosocial health.

Adolescent Distress: Is There a Vaccine? Social and Cultural Considerations during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic had an unprecedented impact on mental health. In particular, the impact on adolescents was likely significant due to vulnerability factors linked to this developmental stage and pre-existing conditions of hardship. The present work aimed at grasping the particular effects of the pandemic on social and cultural aspects of adolescence, providing a cross-sectional picture of this historical moment of contemporary youth culture. Further research is needed to verify the findings.