Exploring the Potential of a School-Based Online Health and Wellbeing Screening Tool: Young People’s Perspectives

Abstract

Despite high levels of need, many young people who experience health issues do not seek, access or receive support. Between May and November 2021, using semi-structured interviews, we explored the perspectives of 51 young people (aged 13–14) from two schools who had taken part in a novel online health and wellbeing screening programme, the Digital Health Contact (DHC). One school delivered the DHC during home-learning due to COVID-19 restrictions, whilst the other delivered it in school when restrictions were lifted. The DHC was seen as a useful approach for identifying health need and providing support, and had high levels of acceptability. Young people appreciated the online format of the DHC screening questionnaire and thought this facilitated more honest responses than a face-to-face approach might generate. Completion at home, compared to school-based completion, was perceived as more private and less time-pressured, which young people thought facilitated more honest and detailed responses. Young people’s understanding of the screening process (including professional service involvement and confidentiality) influenced engagement and responses. Overall, our findings afford important insights around young people’s perspectives of participating in screening programmes, and highlight key considerations for the development and delivery of health screening approaches in (and out of) school.

The impact of the newly developed school-based ‘Digital Health Contact’—Evaluating a health and wellbeing screening tool for adolescents in England

“…This supports our qualitative findings, which suggested that PHN(SN) found the workload associated with the DHC manageable because of its structured and planned nature, as well a meaningful part of their role [16]. In addition, the DHC was perceived as an acceptable and useful approach to identifying unmet health needs by adolescents and school stakeholders taking part [16,17]. Previous research suggests that although teachers may be able to identify and refer pupils who externally express signs of poor mental health through behavioural problems, this is much more difficult for pupils whose mental health problems are more internalized (e.g., emotional problems) [22,23].…”

“…This is the first study to quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of a locally commissioned, digital, health and wellbeing screening tool for schools in the UK, as part of a larger mixed-methods evaluation [16,17]. Research calls for improved school-based interventions to prevent…”

“…The Digital Health Contact (DHC) has been described in detail elsewhere [16,17]. It is an online, school-based, self-report, health and wellbeing screening tool, commissioned in the East Midlands of England.…”

Understanding COVID: Collaborative Government Campaign for Citizen Digital Health Literacy in the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…One of the main challenges of the strategy was to reach as many vulnerable people of different ages as possible, as has been done in similar studies and interventions [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ], but at the same time minimizing the technological gap that could leave someone behind, which is a common problem when trying to reach a vulnerable population using information technologies [ 9 , 26 , 27 ]. To do this, everyday technology tools already existing in homes, such as tablets and smartphones, were used, with no need for additional installation of complex programs.…”

Referrals and Determinant Factors of a National School Health Campaign in Lebanon on Children Aged between 3 and 12 Years Old

“…We should also point out that children's health is not restricted to physical health only since mental health is crucial in their overall well-being, as stated by the WHO definition of health [7]. Over the past decade, increasing rates of mental health issues among young people have been observed [8], and early childhood adversities, such as abuse or neglect, have been implicated in lasting consequences and health modifications [9]. Therefore, the first step in providing targeted support for children at risk and their caretakers could be screening for exposure to those childhood experiences, protective factors, and effects of a toxic stress response [9].…”