How effective are school-based mental health interventions for children in elementary school?

The Effectiveness of School-Based Mental Health Services for Elementary-Aged Children: A Meta-Analysis

News Summary: This meta-analysis examines the effects of school-based mental health services for elementary school-age children delivered by school personnel. Forty-three controlled trials evaluating 49,941 elementary school-age children met criteria for inclusion in this study. The study used a randomized, between-subjects, controlled comparison or quasi-experimental design using matched samples to minimize selection bias. The study finds school-based mental health services had a small to medium effect size (Hedges g = 0.39) in decreasing mental health problems. The largest effect size was for targeted intervention, (Hedges g = 0.76), followed by selective prevention (Hedges g = 0.67) compared with universal prevention (Hedges g = 0.29). Interventions integrated into student’s academic instruction using contingency management were found to have positive impacts (Hedges g = 0.57), and interventions implemented multiple times per week (Hedges g = 0.50) were also shown to have a notable impact for improving student’s lives. These results are promising considering the normal barriers that impede students from receiving mental health care outside of school and the fact 80% of mental health service are provided in schools by personnel who are readily available and are shown to be effective in addressing student’s mental health needs (Ringeisen, Henderson, and Hoagwood, 2003).

Definitions

• Targeted Intervention: interventions provided only to students identified as having mental health problems.
• Universal prevention: interventions provided to all students in a classroom
• Selective prevention: interventions provided only to students at risk for mental health problems according to a teacher referral or mental health screening

Citation: Sanchez, A. L., Cornacchio, D., Poznanski, B., Golik, A. M., Chou, T., & Comer, J. S. (2018). The effectiveness of school-based mental health services for elementary-aged children: a meta-analysis. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 57(3), 153-165.

Link: http://www.jaacap.com/article/S0890-8567(17)31926-3/fulltext