JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Psychological distress becomes more common during adolescence, yet many struggle to access clinic-based mental healthcare. Digital, self-help single session interventions (SSIs) could extend current provision and overcome barriers to help-seeking.

Objective:

We piloted Project Care, a self-compassion focused SSI, to examine its feasibility, acceptability and potential utility for UK adolescents aged 13-18.

Methods:

We used single arm pre-post intervention program evaluation within subjects’ design. Consenting participants (n = 813, Mage = 15.38 years, SD = 1.58) completed demographics and clinical measures at baseline, as well as measures of beliefs about self-compassion, hope, hopelessness, and help-seeking intentions pre-immediately post SSI. They also completed the Programme Feedback Scale. Feasibility is reported as counts/percentages of recruitment, demographics, and patterns of use. Acceptability is reported as measures of central tendency/dispersion from feedback ratings. Potential utility, based on proximal outcomes, is examined using paired t-tests.

Results:

Most participants were recruited via signposting Project Care UK from large third-party early mental health help provider organizations. While the sample was predominantly female, distributions of sexual orientation, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status (SES) closely mirrored UK census data. Just under half of those who consented completed the SSI. Completers widely endorsed the intervention as acceptable. Significant, favourable pre-post changes were observed across all outcome measures, including hope (d = 0.72), hopelessness (d = -0.73), and beliefs about self-compassion (d = -0.64). No differences were observed for help-seeking intentions.

Conclusions:

Although not all participants fully completed all stages of the study, our findings show that recruiting adolescents in the UK is feasible, completers indicate that it is acceptable, and seem to benefit on the expected proximal outcomes of improved hope/reduced hopelessness and beliefs about self-compassion. More extensive follow up over time, and comparator intervention analyses would allow more robust conclusions to be drawn.