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Abstract
Objective To explore the feasibility of a dedicated online youth mental health help-seeking intervention and to evaluate using a randomised controlled trial (RCT) study design in order to identify any modifications needed before commencement of the full-scale RCT.
Design A pilot RCT with 1:1 randomisation to either the intervention or comparison arm.
Setting An online study conducted Australia-wide.
Participants 18–25 year olds living in Australia were recruited via social media.
Intervention Link is a dedicated online mental health help-seeking navigation tool that matches user’s mental health issues, severity and service-type preferences (online, phone and face-to-face) with appropriate youth-friendly services. The comparison arm was usual help-seeking strategies with a link to Google.com.
Main outcome measures The primary outcome was the number of acceptability and feasibility criteria successfully met. Intervention and study design acceptability and feasibility were assessed by nine criteria. Secondary outcomes, via online surveys (at baseline, 1 week and 1 month) measured service use, help-seeking intentions, psychological distress, barriers to help-seeking, attitudes towards mental health help-seeking, mental health literacy, satisfaction and trust.
Results Fifty-one participants were randomised (intervention: n=24; comparison: n=27). Three out of four of the intervention and two out of five of the study design criteria were met. Unmet criteria could be addressed by modifications to the study design. Qualitative analysis demonstrated that Link was useful to participants and may have increased their positive experiences towards help-seeking. There were no observable differences between arms in any outcome measures and no harms were detected.
Conclusion Generally, the Link intervention and study design were acceptable and feasible with modifications suggested for the four out of nine unmet criteria. The main trial will hence have shorter surveys and a simpler recruitment process, use positive affect as the primary outcome and will not link to Google.com for the comparison arm.
Trial registration number Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, ACTRN12614000386639.
- Child & adolescent psychiatry
- PRIMARY CARE
- Information technology
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
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Footnotes
Contributors SDK prepared the materials, analysed the data and drafted the article. LS and KB obtained the funding. KB and VB oversaw the recruitment process. SC supervised the study design and statistical analyses. All authors were involved with the study design, critically reviewed the drafts and approved the submitted manuscript.
Funding Funding was from the Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre, an Australian-based international research centre that unites young people with researchers, practitioners, innovators and policymakers from over 70 partner organisations. SC is supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Career Development Fellowship (CDF).
Competing interests None declared.
Ethics approval This study was approved by the University of Melbourne Human Research Ethics Committee, reference no. 1341063.4. All participants consented to take part in this study via an online consent form.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement No additional data are available.