Text Message Interventions in Adolescent Mental Health and Addiction Services: Scoping Review

Area of Science:

• Adolescent Health
• Mental Health Interventions
• Digital Health

Background:

• Adolescent mental health and substance use disorders are frequently undiagnosed and undertreated.
• Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging is emerging as a tool for delivering adolescent health services to improve well-being and mitigate risks.
• A comprehensive synthesis of SMS text message interventions for adolescent mental health is lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To conduct a scoping review mapping and categorizing research gaps in SMS text messaging interventions for adolescent mental health and addiction services.
• To identify the extent, range, and implementation contexts of these digital health interventions.

Main Methods:

• A scoping review utilizing Levac's adaptation of Arksey and O'Malley's framework.
• A systematic search across five databases, with screening using Covidence software.
• Data extraction guided by the PICO framework and stakeholder input, focusing on methodology, intervention design, and implementation.

Main Results:

• 31 articles published between 2013-2020 were included from 1142 abstracts.
• Intervention engagement, cognitive changes, and acceptability were common outcomes.
• Most interventions were short-term (<12 weeks) with 1-3 weekly messages; 65% used bidirectional messaging. Implementation details were sparsely reported.

Conclusions:

• SMS text messaging interventions for adolescent mental health are a growing research area.
• Limited large-scale controlled trials and theoretically driven designs hinder generalizability.
• Significant gaps exist in implementation, cost, clinical workflow, bidirectionality, and personalization, necessitating rigorous trials.