Symposia
Program / Treatment Design
John Kjøbli, Ph.D.
Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health
Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Line Solheim Kvamme, M.S.
PhD student
Center for child and adolescent mental health
Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Josefine Bergseth, M.S.
Research coordinator
Center for child and adolescent mental health
Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Thomas Engell, PhD
Researcher
Center for child and adolescent mental health
Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Anneli Mellblom, PhD
Researcher
Center for child and adolescent mental health
Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Siri Saugestad Helland, PhD
Researcher
Center for child and adolescent mental health
Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Using Systematic Reviews and Co-creation to Develop a Brief Evidence-Based Intervention for Adolescents
Introduction. Adolescence is a time for biological, social, cognitive and emotional change. Although many adolescents flourish, quite a few struggle with mental health problems and prevalence rates are rising. Norwegian frontline health care workers report lacking effective tools to help adolescents seeking help for mental health problems, despite the high prevalence of such consultations. To accommodate this challenge, we are developing an intervention that targets a single underlying factor associated with a range of mental health problems – emotion regulation. The ability to regulate intense negative emotions (e.g., by employing acceptance skills) may prevent and reduce mental health problems in youth. Emotion regulation may therefore be an optimal target for frontline services in promoting resilience and good mental health.
Method. We conducted two systematic reviews, to 1) identify practice elements in mental health interventions in studies measuring emotion regulation and, with the use of multi-level meta-analyses, we 2) investigated potentially active ingredients in interventions by analyzing the association between the inclusion of intervention elements and effects on emotion regulation. Using Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST), we will co-create an intervention with adolescents and practitioners, and test the effects of the intervention elements, including delivery methods and implementation strategies.
Results. We identified several elements associated with positive effects on emotion regulation in interventions for adolescents. Concretely, findings from both systematic reviews revealed that psychoeducation, exploration and acceptance of emotions, and practicing alternative responses to emotions and thoughts predicted positive outcomes. The findings from the two reviews will be presented along with findings from the co-creation process.
Discussion. The systematic identification of elements predicting positive effects, and co-creation with practitioners and users, has the potential to increase the implementability, reach and effectiveness of brief interventions aimed at preventing and reducing mental health problems among youth.
Keywords: emotion regulation, common elements, co-creation