A web-based approach to adolescent mental health: Randomized controlled trial of a brief Positive Psychology intervention

Theoretical background

The high prevalence of mental health problems as well as the substantial rise in the prevalence of major depression among young people is a major concern worldwide. There is an urgent need for easily accessible interventions that promote well-being and mitigate mental health problems in adolescents before mental health problems worsen. Hence, we developed a freely accessible, brief online intervention based on Positive Psychology for youth.

Objective

This randomized controlled trial (preregistered at ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04994496) examined the efficacy, acceptance, and adherence of a brief online Positive Psychology intervention to improve affect- and stress-related outcomes in healthy adolescents in comparison to an active control condition.

Methods

79 adolescents aged 12 to 18 (M = 15.65, SD = 1.74) were randomly assigned to the experimental group, which received 14 daily web-based self-help exercises based on Positive Psychology, or to the control group, which received a web-based active control intervention (factual messages unrelated to Positive Psychology). Changes in affect- and stress-related outcome measures as well as acceptance of the intervention were assessed using self-report inventories. Adherence to the intervention was measured using objective indicators and self-reporting.

Results

There were no differential effects of the Positive Psychology intervention on affect- and stress-related outcomes compared to the control group. The overall acceptance of the Positive Psychology intervention was good and more than 83 % of the participants in the Positive Psychology intervention group reported that they would recommend the exercises to other adolescents. Furthermore, more than 87 % of the adolescents in the Positive Psychology intervention group reported that they carried out the exercises, and usage data showed that approximately 64 % opened 10 or more of the links that contained the exercises.

Conclusion

The findings have important implications for future efforts in the prevention of mental health problems. In particular, they provide more information on how to deliver brief online, multi-component Positive Psychology interventions for healthy young people. As the results indicated good acceptance and adherence in our adolescent sample but no differential effects, we encourage further mixed methods research evaluating the perceived usefulness and person-activity-fit to understand the optimal methodology for the delivery of Positive Psychology interventions to have beneficial effects.