A Systematic Review of the Effectiveness of School-based Interventions for Mental Health Symptoms of Children or Adolescents After War or Natural Disaster
The review draws attention to the effectiveness of school-based interventions for the mental health of children affected by war or natural disasters. Due to the lack of a literature review of the respective area, this review examined the efficacy of school-based interventions for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety symptoms of war or natural disaster-exposed children or adolescents.
The systematic research was conducted in four databases; PsychInfo, PubMED, Scopus and PTSDPubs, using key subject terms “school-based interventions”, “war”, “natural disaster”, and “trauma”. Identified papers were assessed using the Effective Public Health Practice Project (EPHPP) quality assessment tool for quantitative studies.
A total of 12 studies met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. While most studies have shown declines in PTSD, depression and anxiety symptoms, the most successful results have been observed in PTSD symptoms following interventions for natural disaster-induced trauma.
Interventions in which practitioners were teachers and lasted longer than others yielded the most successful results in all three types of symptoms. The study concluded that prioritising school-based interventions that persist long and are delivered by teachers after wars or natural disasters may be more effective in improving PTSD, depression and anxiety symptoms of children or adolescents.
DATA
- CategoryTools and resources
- CountryTurkey
- LanguageTurkish
- Type of resourceDocument
