Abstract
Background: The Awareness program was designed as a part of the EU-funded Saving and Empowering Young Lives in Europe (SEYLE) intervention study to promote mental health of adolescents in 11 European countries by helping them to develop problem-solving skills and encouraging them to self-recognize the need for help as well as how to help peers in need. Methods. For this descriptive study all coordinators of the SEYLE Awareness program answered an open-ended evaluation questionnaire at the end of the project implementation. Their answers were synthesized and analyzed and are presented here. Results: The results show that the program cultivated peer understanding and support. Adolescents not only learned about mental health by participating in the Awareness program, but the majority of them also greatly enjoyed the experience. Conclusions: Recommendations for enhancing the successes of mental health awareness programs are presented. Help and cooperation from schools, teachers, local politicians and other stakeholders will lead to more efficacious future programs.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 776 |
| Journal | BMC Public Health |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 12 Sep 2012 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:It is well known that the majority of young people will not actively seek help from professionals, parents, teachers, and oftentimes not even from their peers [9]. With this in mind, how can youth suicide effectively be prevented? In 2002, the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) launched a 9-country pilot study in order to raise the knowledge and awareness about mental health in young people. The assumption was that sound information would facilitate communication about mental health concerns, without raising unrealistic expectations about professional help that was generally unavailable [14,15]. In the WPA 9-country study, the awareness campaigns were locally designed and, thus, culturally adjusted to be acceptable for the local population. The results showed that it was possible to change attitudes, including those about suicide, by influencing the behavioral responses of the pupils and parents that partook in the study with slightly poorer results for the participating teachers. Building on that pilot study, an awareness program for adolescents was designed for the Saving and Empowering Young Lives in Europe (SEYLE) study, funded by the European Union within the 7Th Framework Health Theme.
Funding Information:
The SEYLE project is supported by the European Union through the Seventh Framework Program (FP7), Grant agreement number HEALTH-F2-2009-223091. SEYLE Project Leader and Principal Investigator is Professor in Psychiatry and Suicidology at Karolinska Institutet (KI) Danuta Wasserman, head for the National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental Ill-Health (NASP/KI) Stockholm, Sweden. The Executive Committee comprises Professor Danuta Wasserman and Senior Lecturer Vladimir Carli, both from NASP/KI, Sweden; Professor Marco Sarchiapone, University of Molise, Campobasso, Italy; Professor Christina W. Hoven, and Anthropologist Camilla Wasserman, both from Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute, NY, USA; the SEYLE Consortium comprises sites in twelve European countries. Site leaders are Danuta Wasserman (NASP/KI, Coordinating Centre), Christian Haring (Austria), Airi Varnik (Estonia), Jean-Pierre Kahn (France), Romuald Brunner (Germany), Judit Balazs (Hungary), Paul Corcoran (Ireland), Alan Apter (Israel), Marco Sarchiapone (Italy), Doina Cosman (Romania), Vita Postuvan (Slovenia) and Julio Bobes (Spain). Finally we would like to thank the graphic designer of the Awareness booklet, Ana Nordenskiöld, NASP/KI, Sweden and all the Awareness program coordinators, instructors, assistants and other field staff for their efforts and feedback.
Funding
It is well known that the majority of young people will not actively seek help from professionals, parents, teachers, and oftentimes not even from their peers [9]. With this in mind, how can youth suicide effectively be prevented? In 2002, the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) launched a 9-country pilot study in order to raise the knowledge and awareness about mental health in young people. The assumption was that sound information would facilitate communication about mental health concerns, without raising unrealistic expectations about professional help that was generally unavailable [14,15]. In the WPA 9-country study, the awareness campaigns were locally designed and, thus, culturally adjusted to be acceptable for the local population. The results showed that it was possible to change attitudes, including those about suicide, by influencing the behavioral responses of the pupils and parents that partook in the study with slightly poorer results for the participating teachers. Building on that pilot study, an awareness program for adolescents was designed for the Saving and Empowering Young Lives in Europe (SEYLE) study, funded by the European Union within the 7Th Framework Health Theme. The SEYLE project is supported by the European Union through the Seventh Framework Program (FP7), Grant agreement number HEALTH-F2-2009-223091. SEYLE Project Leader and Principal Investigator is Professor in Psychiatry and Suicidology at Karolinska Institutet (KI) Danuta Wasserman, head for the National Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental Ill-Health (NASP/KI) Stockholm, Sweden. The Executive Committee comprises Professor Danuta Wasserman and Senior Lecturer Vladimir Carli, both from NASP/KI, Sweden; Professor Marco Sarchiapone, University of Molise, Campobasso, Italy; Professor Christina W. Hoven, and Anthropologist Camilla Wasserman, both from Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute, NY, USA; the SEYLE Consortium comprises sites in twelve European countries. Site leaders are Danuta Wasserman (NASP/KI, Coordinating Centre), Christian Haring (Austria), Airi Varnik (Estonia), Jean-Pierre Kahn (France), Romuald Brunner (Germany), Judit Balazs (Hungary), Paul Corcoran (Ireland), Alan Apter (Israel), Marco Sarchiapone (Italy), Doina Cosman (Romania), Vita Postuvan (Slovenia) and Julio Bobes (Spain). Finally we would like to thank the graphic designer of the Awareness booklet, Ana Nordenskiöld, NASP/KI, Sweden and all the Awareness program coordinators, instructors, assistants and other field staff for their efforts and feedback.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| 7Th Framework Health Theme | |
| Saving and Empowering Young Lives in Europe | |
| Seventh Framework Programme | HEALTH-F2-2009-223091, 223091 |
| European Commission | |
| Seventh Framework Programme |
Keywords
- Adolescents
- Awareness program
- Intervention
- Mental health
- SEYLE
- School-based
- Suicide prevention
- Youth
