Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Mental Health
Date Submitted: Feb 20, 2023
Open Peer Review Period: Feb 20, 2023 - Apr 17, 2023
Date Accepted: Oct 21, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Systematic review and meta-analysis regarding the effectiveness of online/remote interventions for mental health in children, adolescents, and young adults after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic
ABSTRACT
Background:
The prevalence of mental illness has increased in children, adolescents, and young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic, while at the same time, access to treatment facilities has been restricted, resulting in a need for the quick implementation of remote/online interventions.
Objective:
To give an overview of randomized-control studies examining remote/online interventions for mental health in children, adolescents, and young adults and to explore the overall effectiveness of these interventions regarding different symptoms.
Methods:
A systematic literature search was conducted according to PRISMA guidelines using PubMed and Google Scholar. A meta-analysis was applied using a random effects model to calculate overall effect sizes for interventions using standardized mean differences for post-intervention scores.
Results:
Twelve articles with n=3833 participants could be included in the final sample, and nine were included in the quantitative analysis. The studies examined different digital interventions for several different outcomes, showing better outcomes than controls in some studies. Meta-analyses revealed significant medium overall effects for anxiety (SMD = 0.35, 95% CI: 0.06, 0.64) and social functioning (SMD = 0.42, 95% CI: -0.68, -0.17) and a small significant effect for depression (SMD = 0.21, 95% CI: 0.13, 0.30). In contrast, no significant overall treatment effect could be found for well-being, psychological distress, disordered eating, and COVID-19-related symptoms.
Conclusions:
The qualitative and quantitative analyses of the included studies show some promising results regarding the effectiveness of online interventions, especially for symptoms of anxiety and depression and for training in social functioning. However, for other symptom groups, effectiveness is not apparent. All in all, more research with high-quality studies is needed.
Citation
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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.