Common Elements of Adolescent Prevention Programs: Minimizing Burden While Maximizing Reach

Abstract

A growing number of evidence-based youth prevention programs are available, but challenges related to dissemination and implementation limit their reach and impact. The current review identifies common elements across evidence-based prevention programs focused on the promotion of health-related outcomes in adolescents. We reviewed and coded descriptions of the programs for common practice and instructional elements. Problem-solving emerged as the most common practice element, followed by communication skills, and insight building. Psychoeducation, modeling, and role play emerged as the most common instructional elements. In light of significant comorbidity in poor outcomes for youth, and corresponding overlap in their underlying skills deficits, we propose that synthesizing the prevention literature using a common elements approach has the potential to yield novel information and inform prevention programming to minimize burden and maximize reach and impact for youth.

Leveraging After-School Programs to Minimize Risks for Internalizing Symptoms Among Urban Youth: Weaving Together Music Education and Social Development

“…Discussions with MMP leadership centered on particular skills that would promote the organization’s core values of respect, self-esteem, perseverance, teamwork, and compassion. Aligning these with common elements from evidence-based prevention programs (Boustani et al, 2015) led to the following three skills: feelings identification and relaxation techniques, cognitive change strategies, and problem solving.…”

“…Cognitive change strategies are common to both anxiety treatment (Silverman et al, 2008) and anxiety prevention programs (Boustani et al, 2015). Activities included playing/singing a melody in a major and minor key, discussing how these different ways of “thinking” about the melody can change how we feel about it, and using movie clips to demonstrate how thoughts (including biased attributions of ambiguous cues) can influence emotions and actions.…”

“…Indeed, children receiving emotion-focused prevention programming have shown decreased negative emotional expression (Izard, Trentacosta, King, & Mostow, 2004). In fact, social-emotional skills such as problem solving and cognitive reappraisal have been identified as common elements not only of anxiety and depression prevention but also of programs focused on preventing other outcomes such as substance use and promoting more broad and general life skills (Boustani et al, 2015). Further, these emotion-focused components have been implemented not only in selective preventive interventions but also in universal programs designed to promote good mental health and prevent anxiety and depressive symptoms among all youth in a setting (e.g., Lock & Barrett, 2003), highlighting their potential for reducing symptoms for youth who are already exhibiting them, and reducing risk among youth who are not.…”

“…While several studies have demonstrated symptom reduction and improved functioning (e.g., Pelham et al, 2000; Pelham et al, 2014), the program is cost and time intensive for staff, thereby limiting its transportability to community settings (Frazier, Chacko, Van Gessel, O’Boyle, & Pelham, 2012). Leaders @ Play was designed for middle school youth with elevated levels of emotional distress; youth received after school training that emphasized core skills of prevention programming (Boustani et al, 2015), including communication, problem-solving, and emotion regulation, and then practiced those skills as junior counselors during the summer camp that followed (Frazier et al, 2014). Leaders @ Play relied heavily on sports and physical activities to teach and practice skills and referred youth were exhibiting more externalizing than internalizing symptoms, reflecting teacher concerns.…”

Mechanisms of change in psychotherapy for children and adolescents: current state, clinical implications, and methodological and conceptual recommendations for mediation analysis

“…This would offer the possibility to develop novel transdiagnostic and potentially brief interventions for a particular problem (e.g., low self-confidence) that are no longer tied to a certain disorder or therapeutic approach, and would help to implement evidence-based treatments into daily practice [20]. Common elements treatments have already been developed (e.g., [21]) based on systematic reviews of treatment components, but not on the basis of mediation analyses, which is required to infer a causal influence of mediators on therapeutic change.…”