Teen Depression, Stories of Hope and Health: A Promising Universal School Climate Intervention for Middle School Youth

Abstract

This study describes the delivery of the Teen Depression: Stories of Health and Healing (TDSHH), a brief school-based depression awareness delivered for middle school students. The main objectives of the proposed evaluation were to examine the effects of TDSHH on middle school health students in the areas of knowledge about depression, willingness to seek help from adults and belief that adults can help. Two Chicago suburban middle schools agreed to be part of the TDSHH intervention study. In both schools, a pre/post-test wait-list control quasi-experimental design was used. Each student in the study (total N=223) completed a questionnaire that incorporated a depression knowledge scale created by the EL team and two additional standardized scales, the Help-Seeking Acceptability at School Scale (Wyman et al., 2008) and the Adult Help for Suicidal Youth Scale (Schmeelk-Cone et al., 2012). Data from the pilot indicates that TDSHH students showed statistically significant gains on understanding depression symptoms; identifying strategies students could use to improve their mental health; and increasing positive attitudes toward help seeking with adults at school.