The sequelae of children and young people's (hereafter: CYP) mental disorders are broad and longlasting. Despite pledges to increase mental health funding in the UK, CYP experience difficulties accessing services and long wait times.
Background
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, population studies suggest that CYP’s mental health deteriorated, with a 53% increase in contacts made to CYP’s mental health services (MHS) in England compared to before the pandemic. Given rising demands, it is crucial that MHS for CYP are optimised. There is a paucity of information regarding effectiveness of treatment-as-usual MHS in CYP, with uncertainties regarding which individuals improve and why, and in what ways treatment was disrupted during the pandemic.
Project Aims
This proposal aims to:
- Better understand which community MHS contacts are helpful for which young people and why
- Determine in what ways community MHS were impacted for young people during the pandemic.
Project Activity
Qualitative interviews will explore potential reasons for various outcomes from young people’s MHS experiences. Young people who have had MHS contact, and their parent or carer will be invited to participate in this qualitative interview. The main focus will be exploring why services worked or did not work for them, and what factors affected their experiences of treatment. Participants will be purposely sampled to represent a cross-section of the target groups identified through discussions with PPI (Patient and Public Involvement) advisory groups as having challenges with treatment. For example, those from rural areas or lower income households who may have difficulty attending appointments (important factors already identified through PPI discussions). Interviews may be conducted with the parent/carer or separately, as preferred by the young person. (We do not require the young person's parent/carer to be involved, and may also only interview the parent/carer if the young person does not wish to be interviewed.) Each interview will last up to one hour and will be located wherever is most convenient for participants, e.g., in the participant’s home, a café, or online. Interviews will be recorded and transcribed by a university approved professional transcription service. Data will be managed in NVivo software and thematically analysed using the Framework Method.
Anticipated or actual outputs
The findings will help to:
- Understand barriers or facilitators of the effectiveness of treatment-as-usual MHS in CYP
- Inform the quantitative analyses performed in subsequent work packages of a larger Wellcome Trust grant to understand the effectiveness of community MHS in young people.
- produce recommendations for clinicians and policymakers of how services can be improved for CYP at risk of poorer outcomes.
Who is involved?
- Dr. Sharon Neufeld
- Dr. Anne-Marie Burn
- Ms. Miriam Yang
- Prof Tamsin Ford
