Initial Evaluation of a Brief, Transdiagnostic Intervention for Youth in School Mental Health Care

To evaluate the Brief Digital Intervention Program, developed in response to pandemic-era disruptions in school mental health care and the need for flexible and scalable interventions with integrated measurement for students with mild-to-moderate difficulties. The program comprises four brief, digital interventions that teach transdiagnostic, evidence-based skills (relaxation, cognitive restructuring, problem solving, and practicing the opposite of unhelpful behavior), and includes an embedded progress monitoring tool for routinely measuring students' internalizing and externalizing difficulties and "top problems" session-by-session. Study goals were to: 1) examine the acceptability of the intervention; 2) describe barriers and facilitators to its use; and 3) examine pre-post changes in student-reported difficulties.

Data were examined from 53 school mental health professionals who implemented the intervention with 213 students (M_age = 13.41 years; 63.3% cisgender girls, 27.1% cisgender boys, 9.5% another gender) presenting for mild to moderate mental health concerns from 2021-2024.

Professionals and students reported high satisfaction with the intervention. Commonly reported barriers included difficulties with technical navigation and time for training; facilitators included ease of use/accessibility of the technical features and student engagement. Results indicated significant reductions in internalizing difficulties, β = -0.42, p < .001 [small-to-medium effect], externalizing difficulties, β = -0.15, p = -.04 [small effect], and top problem severity, β = -1.01, p < .001 [large effect], from pre- to post-intervention.

Findings provide preliminary support for the acceptability and potential benefits of the Brief Digital Intervention Program for school mental health care. Next steps include evaluation using a controlled, randomized design and testing sustainability.