Investigating Project Care UK, a Web-Based Self-Help Single-Session Intervention for Youth Mental Health: Program...

Psychological distress becomes more common during adolescence, yet many young people struggle to access clinic-based mental health care. Digital, self-help single-session interventions (SSIs) could extend current provision and overcome barriers to help seeking.

This study aims to pilot Project Care UK, a self-compassion-focused SSI, to examine its feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy for UK adolescents aged between 13 and 18 years.

We used a single-arm, within-subjects pre-post intervention program evaluation. Consenting participants completed a demographic survey and clinical measures at baseline. Self-assessments of hope, hopelessness, negative beliefs about self-compassion, and help seeking were measured immediately before and after the intervention. Acceptability and feasibility were measured after the intervention using the Program Feedback Scale and study completion metrics. Preliminary efficacy was evaluated using linear mixed-effects models. The study protocol was preregistered on the Open Science Framework before publication.

Of the 813 individuals who gave consent for the study, 714 (87.8%) initiated the preintervention assessment survey, 610 (75%) initiated the intervention, 341 (41.9%) initiated the Program Feedback Scale, and 329 (40.5%) initiated the postintervention assessment survey. The sample consisted of adolescents (mean age 15.38, SD 1.58 y) who were predominantly assigned female sex at birth, were White, and were nonheterosexual. Intervention completers widely endorsed the intervention as acceptable. Significant, favorable pre- and postintervention changes were observed across all outcome measures, including increased hope (Cohen d=0.72, P<.001), decreased hopelessness (Cohen d=-0.73, P<.001), and reduced negative beliefs about self-compassion (Cohen d=-0.64, P<.001). No significant changes were observed for help-seeking intentions.

Although not all participants completed the study, our findings show that recruiting adolescents in the United Kingdom is feasible; completers indicated that the intervention was acceptable, and they showed improvements in the proximal outcomes of hope, hopelessness, and beliefs about self-compassion. More extensive follow-up over time and comparator intervention analyses would allow more robust conclusions to be drawn.