Promoting the Mental Health of Adolescents through Cognitive Behavior Group Therapy and Family Psychoeducation

Variation in Evidence-Based Practices Among Youth-Serving Residential Treatment Facilities

BACKGROUND

Residential treatment is among the most intensive and expensive settings for children with behavioral health challenges; yet, the extent to which evidence-based practices are used in these settings is unknown.

AIM

The purpose of this study was to describe the extent which family therapy, case management, telehealth, peer support, and family psychoeducation are provided in residential treatment using data from the National Mental Health Services Survey (N-MHSS). Organizational factors-region, ownership, payment, licensing/accreditation, and facility size-were examined in relation to evidence-based practices to understand disparities in care.

METHODS

This was a secondary analysis of publicly available data from the 2018 N-MHSS. A subpopulation was created consisting of residential facilities that served children (N = 576). Descriptive statistics were used to describe the sample, and Cohen's h was calculated to determine patterns of evidence-based practice utilization.

RESULTS

Evidence-based practices from most to least prevalent were family therapy (76%), family psychoeducation (74%), case management (71.1%), telehealth (17.2%), and peer support (8.7%). The provision of evidence-based practices was not evenly distributed. There were primarily small to moderate differences by organizational factors, including region (i.e., Northeast, Midwest), ownership status (i.e., for-profit), payment type (i.e., self-pay, private insurance), licensing/accreditation (Department of Family and Children Services), and facility capacity (>251 clients served per year).

CONCLUSION

Findings demonstrate a need for research-practice partnerships to determine the barriers that prevent effective evidence-based practices from being implemented in the residential treatment setting.

Textual Features and Risk Preference Effects on Mental Health Education Among Teenager Students in Chongqing, China

Background

Mental health is a public health problem of great concern. Previous studies show that textual features and individual psychological characteristics can influence the effect of receiving information.

Purpose

This study explores whether textual features influence the persuasiveness of teenager students’ mental health education while considering the influence of risk preference.

Methods

From November to December 2021, a cross-sectional study was conducted among 1,869 teenager students in grade 7–12 in Chongqing, China. Wilcoxon signed-rank test, multiple logistic regression, and subgroup analysis were used to analyze the data.

Results

Among the four textual features mentioned in this study, a significant difference was reported in the persuasive effects of information with and without numerical features (p < 0.001), and such information tended to include digital features. The result for the symbolic features (p < 0.001) was consistent with the numerical features. The persuasive effects of positive and negative emotional information significantly differed (p < 0.001), with the former showing a better performance. No significant differences were observed between the persuasive effects of information with and without emotional conflicts (p > 0.05). Combined with those from the risk preference analysis, results showed that the regulatory effect of risk preference was only reflected in emotional conflicts. Students who prefer having no emotional conflict in the text showed the characteristics of risk avoidance, or lower grades, or rural or school accommodation. Most teenager students are also risk averse, especially females (or = 2.223, 95%CI:1.755–2.815) and juniors (or = 1.533, 95%CI: 1.198–1.963).

Conclusion

The numbers, symbols, and positive emotions in the text generate an active effect on teenager students receiving mental health education. Students avoiding risk are inclined to read texts without emotional conflicts. The probability of male choosing texts with positive emotional polarity is 33.5% lower than that of female. Female students and those from lower grades also demonstrate a higher inclination to risk avoidance compared with their male and higher grade counterparts. Therefore, educational materials with different text characteristics should be developed for teenager students with varying characteristics.