Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Jun 11, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Jun 12, 2018 - Jun 26, 2018
Date Accepted: Nov 10, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Moving Stories: a study protocol on a game-based school program for mental health literacy and stigma regarding depression.
ABSTRACT
Background:
The prevalence of elevated depressive symptoms among youth in most Western Societies is high. Yet, most adolescents who are experiencing depressive symptoms do not seek help. Low mental health literacy, high stigma and low social support have been shown to hinder help-seeking. A small number of interventions has been developed to target mental health literacy and stigma, but few focus on actual help-seeking and first aid behavior. We have developed a game-based school program called Moving Stories that targets mental health literacy (knowledge and behavior) and stigma, both regarding depression specifically, in adolescents.
Objective:
To describe the protocol for a study that will test the effectiveness of the program Moving Stories in an adolescent Dutch sample. We hypothesize that adolescents who participate in the program Moving Stories will have better mental health literacy and less stigma regarding depression compared to adolescents in the non-intervention control group at post-test, and 3- and 6-months follow-up. We also expect a positive change in actual help-seeking and first aid behavior at 3- and 6-months follow-up.
Methods:
Moving Stories has been developed by a professional game design company in collaboration with researchers and relevant stakeholders. The effectiveness of Moving Stories will be tested by means of a randomized controlled trial with two conditions: Moving Stories (MS) versus Control. Participants will fill in questionnaires at pre- and post-test and at 3- and 6-months follow-up. Our power analysis showed a required sample size of 180 adolescents.
Results:
Four high schools have agreed to participate with ten classes. A total of 185 adolescents have filled in the pre-test. The last follow-up data will be collected in December 2018.
Conclusions:
If Moving Stories proves to be effective, it could be implemented as a school-based program to target mental health literacy and stigma regarding depression which in turn could improve early help seeking in adolescents suffering from a depression. Clinical Trial: Dutch Trial Register NTR7033; http://www.trialregister.nl/trialreg/admin/rctview.asp?TC=7033
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.