Self-help digital interventions targeted at improving psychological wellbeing in young people with common mental health conditions: A Systematic Review (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Rates of suicide, self-harm and mental disorders remain high in young people, while those diagnosed with mental disorders experience poorer wellbeing than their counterparts. Barriers to accessing mental health support include reduced healthcare coverage, a lack of trained professionals, stigma and embarrassment in accessing support. Self-help digital interventions can be delivered on mass, at low cost and without need for trained input, hence facilitating access to mental health support Research has shown that self-help interventions are effective in young people with mental health conditions but systematic reviews of such studies have been limited to randomised controlled trials (RCTs). OBJECTIVE The objective was to systematically review all controlled studies of digitally delivered self-help interventions for young people, aged 9-25, with reduced wellbeing. Adherence to interventions was also explored. METHODS A systematic search of PsychInfo, Embase, Cochrane, Scopus and MEDLINE databases from inception to 2020, reference searches of relevant papers and a grey literature search was carried out to find any controlled study conducted with young people with diagnosed or self-diagnosed reduced wellbeing, exploring the effectiveness of a digital intervention aimed at improving their wellbeing. Data was extracted that identified the effectiveness and retention rates of the intervention, and the quality of the studies. RESULTS Of the 816 studies which were screened, 11 met the inclusion criteria; nine studies were randomised controlled trials and two were controlled before and after studies. The majority of studies aimed to improve symptoms of depression, two interventions were aimed at both anxiety and depressive symptoms and two studies at improving social functioning difficulties. Due to high risk of bias across interventions, a meta-analysis was not conducted. Retention rates across studies were assessed as moderate to high. CONCLUSIONS Overall, the findings indicated that unguided self-help interventions improved wellbeing in the areas intended by the intervention, and also found additional areas of wellbeing being positively affected by interventions. These findings, alongside the advantages of self-help interventions, highlight the need for the up-scaling of self-help interventions to better support vulnerable populations of young people.