WeARTolerance: Evaluating the impact of an arts-based program to reduce mental health-related stigma in young people

The stigma surrounding mental health remains a significant barrier to help-seeking and well-being in youth populations. The invisibility of mental health issues highlights the critical need for improved knowledge and stigma reduction, underscoring the urgency of tackling this issue. Arts-based interventions have shown promise in addressing stigma, yet comprehensive longitudinal studies in community settings are limited. This research evaluates the "WeARTolerance'' arts-based program in reducing mental health stigma among diverse youths. The program integrated psychoeducational and creative activities (e.g., visual arts, cinema, music, and theatre) to explore mental health themes, with 125 teenagers and young adult participants (M = 13.70; SD = 2.06). The present mixed-method study was split into two phases with complementary objectives: 1) evaluate quantitatively the program's impact in reducing social stigma and related outcomes; 2) explore in-depth qualitative feedback about the program. For the first phase, reliable self-report questionnaires were used to measure mental health knowledge, social stigma, intergroup anxiety, and social distance in pre-, post-, and 6-month follow-up periods. Participants' age and past psychiatric issues were fixed factors with random intercepts, and mixed effects models were used to analyze the attitudinal outcomes across time. In the second phase of this validation, nine teenagers aged between 12 and 16 participated in two focus groups conducted three months after the program. Its contents underwent thorough analysis using content analysis techniques. The quantitative results from Phase 1 demonstrated a decreasing trend in all primary outcomes. In phase 2, participants acknowledged the activities' relevance, reported overall satisfaction with the program, and showed great enthusiasm and willingness to learn more. Arts-based interventions like "WeARTolerance" are valuable for challenging stigma and fostering understanding in youth populations and provide an alternative and creative way to increase mental health literacy. The study proposes a program to reduce youth mental health stigma through arts-based elements, early intervention, and psychoeducation, involving collaborations between professionals and artists to promote youth engagement. Future studies should include indirect social contact and randomized controlled interventions.