Data extraction table
| Author(s) (year); country | Aim of study | Study design | Sample and setting | Intervention (media) description | Data collection process | Key outcomes | Key outcome measures | Key findings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barker et al. (1993); United Kingdom (UK) | To explore the kinds of outcomes feasible for media-based interventions and how these outcomes relate to factors in the target audience | Pretest-posttest design | Representative national UK sample (adults) Pre-series N = 1,040 Post-series N = 544 | You in Mind, a series of seven 10 min television programmes on mental health, broadcast in 1987 | Pre-series surveys were collected as part of a regular process conducted by the Broadcasting Research Department of the BBC Post-series surveys were sent by post after 12 months | The decision to joining a self-help group. Engaging in help-seeking behaviours | Author-developed questionnaire. Yes/no responses: “Joined a self-help group”, “Attended classes or workshops” and “Sought professional help for your problem” | Three (6%) people sought professional help for their problems Two people (4%) rang the Samaritans |
| Birnbaum et al. (2017); United States of America (USA) | To explore how one might take advantage of Google AdWords to reach prospective patients with early psychosis | Quasi-experimental | The campaign ran in New York City for 14 weeks between April 11 and 18 July 2016. Ads were clicked 4,350 times, representing 3,257 users | Website with links to Northwell Health’s Early Treatment Programme | Recorded the number of clicks on links | The decision to seek help from Northwell Health’s Early Treatment Programme | The number of clicks to Northwell Health’s Early Treatment Programme | Fifty-seven (1%) of the sample directly contacted the Early Treatment Programme. Others obtained specific information/education around psychosis (n = 1,918; 44%) or completed a psychosis self-screener (n = 671; 15%) |
| Buist et al. (2007); Australia | “To assess the impact that education through participation in a depression screening programme has on mental health literacy and help-seeking behaviour in perinatal women” (p. 49) | Quasi-experimental | A total of 1,309 women in the postnatal period. The first group (n = 414) did not receive an educational booklet and were not screened for depression. Participants in the second group (n = 895) received the booklet and were screened for depression | An educational booklet: “Emotional Health in Pregnancy and Early Parenthood”. The booklet described symptoms of depression and when to get help, tips on things that will help and where to get help | An author-developed questionnaire: The Survey of Services Used questionnaire. This questionnaire included questions “relating to basic demographic information, problems during pregnancy, adequacy of support, any additional help sought, feelings of ante- or postnatal depression and anxiety, treatment sought for depression and perceived satisfaction with the treatment received” (p. 51) Participants were also asked about their perceptions of the educational booklet | Help-seeking behaviours in the perinatal period | Questions relating to help-seeking in The Survey of Services Used questionnaire | A significantly smaller percentage (p < 0.0001) of women who did not receive the booklet (n = 382; 43%) sought help, compared with those in the experimental group (n = 267; 65%) |
| Claassen et al. (2011); USA | To examine “emergency psychiatric treatment-seeking patterns following media exposure to four national terrorist or mass casualty events” (p. 287) | Quasi-experimental | Publicly funded emergency mental health facility in a large Southwestern (US) city. Visit rates per 1,000 Dallas citizens were analysed. Data for a 181-day window, including 90 days before and after each disaster, were used in analysis | Media events were included if they precipitated local front-page headlines (in Dallas Morning News – an English language paper) for more than five consecutive days and if emergency service psychiatrists identified them as specifically precipitating help-seeking in the study hospital. Four events qualified: the Oklahoma City bombing (1995), the Columbine High School (1999) and Wedgewood Baptist Church (1999) shootings and the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 | Data were taken from an administrative database created via structured medical record review | Overall visit rates at a mental health facility. Rates of anxiety-related visits were also examined | An interrupted time-series design was adopted. “The Ljung–Box test was used to detect significant visit patterning in the time-period around each disaster. Fluctuations in overall census and anxiety-related daily presentation rates during post-disaster weeks were fit using Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average modelling” (p. 289) | Overall, few significant deviations from pre-event patterns were observable during the week after any disaster. “No significant differences in pre–post disaster aggregated seven-day visit rates were observable for any of the four events. However, uniform, non-significant drops in visit volume were noted in aggregated three-day models and the four-disaster combined model showed a significant overall drop-in visit rate for this three-day post-disaster time-period compared to rates for the corresponding pre-disaster days” (p. 290) (p = 0.006). The three-event combined-event model; however, showed a significant increase in anxiety-related visits (t = 5.17; P = 0.006) for this time period. No significant relationship was found between intensity of local media coverage and rate of overall emergency mental health help-seeking or for anxiety-related visits |
| Collins et al. (2019); USA | “To understand the processes involved in effective social marketing of mental health treatment” (p. S228) | Quasi-experimental | California adults (n = 1,954) experiencing symptoms of probable mental illness surveyed between 2014 and 2016 during a major stigma reduction campaign | A state-wide English and Spanish media campaign focusing on mental health education and fostering contact, using in-person or video-based strategies | Data were collected using the information from those who took part in either the 2014 or 2016 California Well-Being Survey | Perceiving a need for help and help-seeking behaviours | Telephone interviews were conducted with participants. Mental health service use was assessed by asking respondents whether they had seen a health-care practitioner for problems with their mental or emotional health in the past 12 months | There was a significant positive association between campaign exposure and service use (odds ratio [OR] = 1.82; 95% CI = 1.17, 2.83), with 47.09% of those exposed to the campaign seeking help, compared with 36.39% of people not exposed to the campaign |
| Denkinger et al. (2022); Germany | To evaluate the feasibility and acceptance of a short film on help-seeking for mental health | Mixed methods | Recruitment took place in Germany; 134 participants (refugees) took part in the study | A 10-min psycho-educational short film: “Coping with Flight and Trauma”, featuring characters from refugee’s backgrounds, in addition to psycho-therapists providing information about psychotherapy. The film was presented in English, Arabic and German | Participants were asked to complete online surveys, pre- and post-intervention. Participants were then invited to take part in a telephone interview. A follow-up survey was sent after three months | Attendance at psycho-therapy | Participants were provided with a survey comprising ten statements on changes to help-seeking behaviours post-intervention | Ten participants (11.9%) started looking for a psychotherapist and nine participants (10.7%) actually started psychotherapy |
| Gaiha et al. (2014); India | To examine “the impact of a multi-state community-based awareness campaign on knowledge, attitude, treatment-seeking behaviour and acceptability” (p. 814) | Quasi-experimental | A community sample of approximately 3,000 persons in four states and a Union Territory in India comprising 20 locations | Four activities: dissemination of educational materials; Public meetings; Street plays (Aisa Bhi Hota Hai), including neighbourhood engagement through musical announcements and quizzes; and Mental health screening services. Activities were presented in Hindi, Assamese, Gujarati and Telugu | Data were collected by the researchers at the mental health screening service sites | Attendance at local mental health services | The number of people attending screening services was counted | Post-intervention, 1,176 persons sought treatment services for mental disorders and 66% (n = 777) received a preliminary diagnosis |
| Goyal et al. (2021); India | “To understand help-seeking processes, barriers and facilitators to help-seeking and the implications these have for mental health practice and referrals for treatment from the patient’s perspective” (p. 2) | Cross-sectional study | The sample consisted of 63 treatment seeking adults with a psychiatric diagnosis “recruited from outpatient mental health services of a tertiary centre in Southern India” (p.2) | N/A | Participants were interviewed about their help-seeking experiences | Factors that influence help-seeking for mental health concerns | Participants were asked questions about sources of information that influenced the decision to seek help | The primary source of information sought for available mental health services was media (95%; n = 61). The second most common source was family/relatives (32.8%; n = 21) |
| Griffiths et al. (2016); Australia | To report on the effectiveness of Mental Health Guru (MH-Guru), a two-module online mental health workplace induction programme | Two-armed randomized controlled trial | Participants were 507 employees from a large Australian multi-department government organisation | MH-Guru is an online psychoeducation workplace induction programme focusing on depression and generalized anxiety disorder. The programme is presented in a simple multi-media, interactive format containing graphics and video vignettes. Participants were assigned either to the online MH-Guru intervention or a wait-list control group | Participants completed online surveys on depression and anxiety literacy, personal stigma about depression and anxiety and help-seeking intentions for anxiety and depression at post-test, help-seeking attitudes and self-reported help-seeking behaviour. These were collected at baseline, one-week post-intervention and at six-month follow-up. However, due to an error in the wording of a question, the six-month data on help-seeking were not analysed | Self-reported help-seeking behaviour | The following question was included in the survey: “In the last two weeks, have you sought information or treatment for depression or anxiety” (p. 31) | The intervention group were more likely to seek help than the control group for depression (p = 0.024) and anxiety (p = 0.026). However, when data were reanalysed excluding help-seeking from the internet, statistical significance was not reached for depression (p = 0.07) or anxiety (p = 0.34) |
| Hay et al. (2007); Australia | To test the health benefits of a brief mental health literacy for eating disorders intervention | Randomized controlled trial | A community-based sample comprising 122 women with eating disorder symptoms | The intervention comprised information “about efficacious treatments, reputable self-help books and where to go for further information and/or services” (p. 316). The control group were provided with information about local mental health services only | Postal survey | Help-seeking for an eating disorder | Help-seeking was assessed with a self-report questionnaire. A list of interventions was provided and “respondents were asked to indicate which of these they had tried ever (at baseline) and during the past six-months” (p. 319) | There was a significant increase in help-seeking for problem eating over the 12 months from 12 (9.8%) at baseline to 42 (34%) at 12 months (P = 0.024) |
| Jansen et al. (2015); Denmark | “To describe service users’ perspectives on helpful and unhelpful aspects in their pathway to care” (p. 84) | Qualitative descriptive | Eleven service users enrolled in Opus, a specialized early psychosis treatment service | N/A | Individual interviews | The decision to access mental health care | Responses to qualitative interview questions | Four participants used the internet to gain knowledge about access. One participant stated: “I had just looked up the psychiatric emergency ward on the Internet … and I just went up there since I was in the area” (p. 88) |
| Mellotte et al. (2017); UK | “To understand more about the barriers that prevent veterans from seeking professional help and the enablers that assist veterans in seeking professional help” | Mixed methods | Participants (n = 18) were recruited from two specialist mental health services for veterans located in the South East of England | N/A | Qualitative data were collected through individual interviews | Help-seeking behaviours | Responses to qualitative interview questions | Nine participants found that media, including internet searches, leaflets, television programmes and magazine stories, helped them to identify where to go to seek help |
| Parikh et al. (2021); India | To evaluate “evaluated a classroom-based sensitisation intervention that was designed to reduce demand-side barriers affecting referrals to a school counselling programme” | A stepped-wedge cluster randomized controlled trial | Seventy classes in six secondary schools in New Delhi, India. The intervention group comprised 35 classes (average class size:53.1). The control group comprised 35 classes (average class size: 49.4) | Intervention group: “Classroom sensitisation session involving a brief video presentation and moderated group discussion” Control group: whole-school sensitisation (teacher-meetings and whole-school activities, including poster displays) | Researchers were responsible for processing referrals and conducting mental health assessments for the current and the host trial | Referral and self-referral proportions | Referred into the host trial of the first-step problem-solving intervention through three routes: self-referral by meeting a counsellor/researcher personally; depositing a referral slip in a drop-box; or referral by a teacher | A significantly higher proportion of students who completed a classroom sensitisation session (which involved a brief video presentation and moderated group discussion) were referred in each trial condition compared to those who completed whole-school sensitisation (teacher-meetings and whole-school activities such as poster displays. (Intervention group = 21.7%, control group = 1.5%, OR = 111.36, 95% CI 35.56 to 348.77, p < 0.001). The proportion of self-referred participants was also higher in the intervention group (98.1%) than the control group (89.1%) (p < 0.001) |
| Reavley et al. (2011); Australia | “To examine the associations between the use of information sources and professional help-seeking” (p. 1267) | Cross-sectional study | “The survey sample comprised 8,841 residents of private dwellings across Australia” (p. 1267) | Use of “the internet, fiction book (story), non-fiction book (factual account), newspaper or magazine, television, radio, pamphlet/leaflet/brochure, or other (which could be specified” (p.1268) | Survey interviews were carried out with respondents randomly selected from a stratified, multi-stage area probability sample of households | Professional help-seeking | Respondents were asked if they had accessed mental health information from “the internet, fiction book (story), non-fiction book (factual account), newspaper or magazine, television, radio, pamphlet/leaflet/ brochure or other (which could be specified” (p. 1268) in the past 12 months. Respondents were also asked if they had had consultations with general practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health nurses, social workers, counsellors, or occupational therapists or any mental health service use | Respondents who had sought help for their mental health the past 12 months were more likely to get information from all sources except radio, including the internet, non-fiction books, pamphlets/leaflets/brochures (P < 0.001), television (P < 0.01) and newspapers/ magazines (P < 0.05) |
| Sharpe et al. (2017); UK | To assess the impact of a mental health booklet on help-seeking behaviours | Cluster randomized controlled trial | Participants were students from primary to secondary schools in England. Schools received both Targeted Mental Health in Schools (TaMHS) (funding and support) “and booklets (TaMHS + booklets, 162 schools) just TaMHS (TaMHS only, 162 schools) just booklets (Booklets only, 76 schools) and neither TaMHS nor booklets (No intervention, 77 schools)” (p. 317) | Two booklets were created: “How to Get Up and Go When You’re Feeling Low” (aimed at young people aged 8–11) and “I Gotta Feeling” (aimed at young people aged 11–14) | Pre- and post-surveys were completed using a secure online system | Help-seeking from a counsellor, peer mentor or another source in school | Participants were shown five booklets post-intervention and asked if they had seen them. Booklets comprised the two intervention booklets, two genuine booklets not distributed by the research team and one sham booklet. Help-seeking was assessed post-intervention, with participants asked if they had sought help from a counsellor, peer mentor or another source in school. Responses were measured on a four-point scale, from never to more than five times | There was no significant relationship between booklet uptake and mental health service use |
| Sugg et al. (2019); USA | To explore help-seeking patterns in young people following the release of 13 Reasons Why Season 2 and the deaths (by suicide) | Quasi-experimental study | National sample. A total of 584,157 participants’ data were collected | The release of 13 reasons Why, a popular English language fictional Netflix show that grapples with adolescent suicide | Anonymized crisis text line data were obtained from January 20 to 31 October 2018 | Use of a national crisis text service | Daily counts of crisis text usage | Crisis conversation volume was 42% higher after the release of 13 Reasons Why Season 2 for six of the 18 days of the study period |
| Author(s) (year); country | Aim of study | Study design | Sample and setting | Intervention (media) description | Data collection process | Key outcomes | Key outcome measures | Key findings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| To explore the kinds of outcomes feasible for media-based interventions and how these outcomes relate to factors in the target audience | Pretest-posttest design | Representative national UK sample (adults) | You in Mind, a series of seven 10 min television programmes on mental health, broadcast in 1987 | Pre-series surveys were collected as part of a regular process conducted by the Broadcasting Research Department of the BBC | The decision to joining a self-help group. Engaging in help-seeking behaviours | Author-developed questionnaire. Yes/no responses: “Joined a self-help group”, “Attended classes or workshops” and “Sought professional help for your problem” | Three (6%) people sought professional help for their problems | |
| To explore how one might take advantage of Google AdWords to reach prospective patients with early psychosis | Quasi-experimental | The campaign ran in New York City for 14 weeks between April 11 and 18 July 2016. Ads were clicked 4,350 times, representing 3,257 users | Website with links to Northwell Health’s Early Treatment Programme | Recorded the number of clicks on links | The decision to seek help from Northwell Health’s Early Treatment Programme | The number of clicks to Northwell Health’s Early Treatment Programme | Fifty-seven (1%) of the sample directly contacted the Early Treatment Programme. Others obtained specific information/education around psychosis ( | |
| “To assess the impact that education through participation in a depression screening programme has on mental health literacy and help-seeking behaviour in perinatal women” (p. 49) | Quasi-experimental | A total of 1,309 women in the postnatal period. The first group ( | An educational booklet: “Emotional Health in Pregnancy and Early Parenthood”. The booklet described symptoms of depression and when to get help, tips on things that will help and where to get help | An author-developed questionnaire: The Survey of Services Used questionnaire. This questionnaire included questions “relating to basic demographic information, problems during pregnancy, adequacy of support, any additional help sought, feelings of ante- or postnatal depression and anxiety, treatment sought for depression and perceived satisfaction with the treatment received” (p. 51) Participants were also asked about their perceptions of the educational booklet | Help-seeking behaviours in the perinatal period | Questions relating to help-seeking in The Survey of Services Used questionnaire | A significantly smaller percentage ( | |
| To examine “emergency psychiatric treatment-seeking patterns following media exposure to four national terrorist or mass casualty events” (p. 287) | Quasi-experimental | Publicly funded emergency mental health facility in a large Southwestern (US) city. Visit rates per 1,000 Dallas citizens were analysed. Data for a 181-day window, including 90 days before and after each disaster, were used in analysis | Media events were included if they precipitated local front-page headlines (in Dallas Morning News – an English language paper) for more than five consecutive days and if emergency service psychiatrists identified them as specifically precipitating help-seeking in the study hospital. Four events qualified: the Oklahoma City bombing (1995), the Columbine High School (1999) and Wedgewood Baptist Church (1999) shootings and the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 | Data were taken from an administrative database created via structured medical record review | Overall visit rates at a mental health facility. Rates of anxiety-related visits were also examined | An interrupted time-series design was adopted. “The Ljung–Box test was used to detect significant visit patterning in the time-period around each disaster. Fluctuations in overall census and anxiety-related daily presentation rates during post-disaster weeks were fit using Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average modelling” (p. 289) | Overall, few significant deviations from pre-event patterns were observable during the week after any disaster. “No significant differences in pre–post disaster aggregated seven-day visit rates were observable for any of the four events. However, uniform, non-significant drops in visit volume were noted in aggregated three-day models and the four-disaster combined model showed a significant overall drop-in visit rate for this three-day post-disaster time-period compared to rates for the corresponding pre-disaster days” ( | |
| “To understand the processes involved in effective social marketing of mental health treatment” (p. S228) | Quasi-experimental | California adults ( | A state-wide English and Spanish media campaign focusing on mental health education and fostering contact, using in-person or video-based strategies | Data were collected using the information from those who took part in either the 2014 or 2016 California Well-Being Survey | Perceiving a need for help and help-seeking behaviours | Telephone interviews were conducted with participants. Mental health service use was assessed by asking respondents whether they had seen a health-care practitioner for problems with their mental or emotional health in the past 12 months | There was a significant positive association between campaign exposure and service use (odds ratio [OR] = 1.82; 95% CI = 1.17, 2.83), with 47.09% of those exposed to the campaign seeking help, compared with 36.39% of people not exposed to the campaign | |
| To evaluate the feasibility and acceptance of a short film on help-seeking for mental health | Mixed methods | Recruitment took place in Germany; 134 participants (refugees) took part in the study | A 10-min psycho-educational short film: “Coping with Flight and Trauma”, featuring characters from refugee’s backgrounds, in addition to psycho-therapists providing information about psychotherapy. The film was presented in English, Arabic and German | Participants were asked to complete online surveys, pre- and post-intervention. Participants were then invited to take part in a telephone interview. A follow-up survey was sent after three months | Attendance at psycho-therapy | Participants were provided with a survey comprising ten statements on changes to help-seeking behaviours post-intervention | Ten participants (11.9%) started looking for a psychotherapist and nine participants (10.7%) actually started psychotherapy | |
| To examine “the impact of a multi-state community-based awareness campaign on knowledge, attitude, treatment-seeking behaviour and acceptability” (p. 814) | Quasi-experimental | A community sample of approximately 3,000 persons in four states and a Union Territory in India comprising 20 locations | Four activities: dissemination of educational materials; Public meetings; Street plays (Aisa Bhi Hota Hai), including neighbourhood engagement through musical announcements and quizzes; and Mental health screening services. Activities were presented in Hindi, Assamese, Gujarati and Telugu | Data were collected by the researchers at the mental health screening service sites | Attendance at local mental health services | The number of people attending screening services was counted | Post-intervention, 1,176 persons sought treatment services for mental disorders and 66% ( | |
| “To understand help-seeking processes, barriers and facilitators to help-seeking and the implications these have for mental health practice and referrals for treatment from the patient’s perspective” (p. 2) | Cross-sectional study | The sample consisted of 63 treatment seeking adults with a psychiatric diagnosis “recruited from outpatient mental health services of a tertiary centre in Southern India” (p.2) | N/A | Participants were interviewed about their help-seeking experiences | Factors that influence help-seeking for mental health concerns | Participants were asked questions about sources of information that influenced the decision to seek help | The primary source of information sought for available mental health services was media (95%; | |
| To report on the effectiveness of Mental Health Guru (MH-Guru), a two-module online mental health workplace induction programme | Two-armed randomized controlled trial | Participants were 507 employees from a large Australian multi-department government organisation | MH-Guru is an online psychoeducation workplace induction programme focusing on depression and generalized anxiety disorder. The programme is presented in a simple multi-media, interactive format containing graphics and video vignettes. Participants were assigned either to the online MH-Guru intervention or a wait-list control group | Participants completed online surveys on depression and anxiety literacy, personal stigma about depression and anxiety and help-seeking intentions for anxiety and depression at post-test, help-seeking attitudes and self-reported help-seeking behaviour. These were collected at baseline, one-week post-intervention and at six-month follow-up. However, due to an error in the wording of a question, the six-month data on help-seeking were not analysed | Self-reported help-seeking behaviour | The following question was included in the survey: “In the last two weeks, have you sought information or treatment for depression or anxiety” (p. 31) | The intervention group were more likely to seek help than the control group for depression ( | |
| To test the health benefits of a brief mental health literacy for eating disorders intervention | Randomized controlled trial | A community-based sample comprising 122 women with eating disorder symptoms | The intervention comprised information “about efficacious treatments, reputable self-help books and where to go for further information and/or services” (p. 316). The control group were provided with information about local mental health services only | Postal survey | Help-seeking for an eating disorder | Help-seeking was assessed with a self-report questionnaire. A list of interventions was provided and “respondents were asked to indicate which of these they had tried ever (at baseline) and during the past six-months” (p. 319) | There was a significant increase in help-seeking for problem eating over the 12 months from 12 (9.8%) at baseline to 42 (34%) at 12 months ( | |
| “To describe service users’ perspectives on helpful and unhelpful aspects in their pathway to care” (p. 84) | Qualitative descriptive | Eleven service users enrolled in Opus, a specialized early psychosis treatment service | N/A | Individual interviews | The decision to access mental health care | Responses to qualitative interview questions | Four participants used the internet to gain knowledge about access. One participant stated: “I had just looked up the psychiatric emergency ward on the Internet … and I just went up there since I was in the area” (p. 88) | |
| “To understand more about the barriers that prevent veterans from seeking professional help and the enablers that assist veterans in seeking professional help” | Mixed methods | Participants ( | N/A | Qualitative data were collected through individual interviews | Help-seeking behaviours | Responses to qualitative interview questions | Nine participants found that media, including internet searches, leaflets, television programmes and magazine stories, helped them to identify where to go to seek help | |
| To evaluate “evaluated a classroom-based sensitisation intervention that was designed to reduce demand-side barriers affecting referrals to a school counselling programme” | A stepped-wedge cluster randomized controlled trial | Seventy classes in six secondary schools in New Delhi, India. The intervention group comprised 35 classes (average class size:53.1). The control group comprised 35 classes (average class size: 49.4) | Intervention group: “Classroom sensitisation session involving a brief video presentation and moderated group discussion” | Researchers were responsible for processing referrals and conducting mental health assessments for the current and the host trial | Referral and self-referral proportions | Referred into the host trial of the first-step problem-solving intervention through three routes: self-referral by meeting a counsellor/researcher personally; depositing a referral slip in a drop-box; or referral by a teacher | A significantly higher proportion of students who completed a classroom sensitisation session (which involved a brief video presentation and moderated group discussion) were referred in each trial condition compared to those who completed whole-school sensitisation (teacher-meetings and whole-school activities such as poster displays. (Intervention group = 21.7%, control group = 1.5%, OR = 111.36, 95% CI 35.56 to 348.77, | |
| “To examine the associations between the use of information sources and professional help-seeking” (p. 1267) | Cross-sectional study | “The survey sample comprised 8,841 residents of private dwellings across Australia” (p. 1267) | Use of “the internet, fiction book (story), non-fiction book (factual account), newspaper or magazine, television, radio, pamphlet/leaflet/brochure, or other (which could be specified” (p.1268) | Survey interviews were carried out with respondents randomly selected from a stratified, multi-stage area probability sample of households | Professional help-seeking | Respondents were asked if they had accessed mental health information from “the internet, fiction book (story), non-fiction book (factual account), newspaper or magazine, television, radio, pamphlet/leaflet/ brochure or other (which could be specified” (p. 1268) in the past 12 months. Respondents were also asked if they had had consultations with general practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health nurses, social workers, counsellors, or occupational therapists or any mental health service use | Respondents who had sought help for their mental health the past 12 months were more likely to get information from all sources except radio, including the internet, non-fiction books, pamphlets/leaflets/brochures ( | |
| Sharpe | To assess the impact of a mental health booklet on help-seeking behaviours | Cluster randomized controlled trial | Participants were students from primary to secondary schools in England. Schools received both Targeted Mental Health in Schools (TaMHS) (funding and support) “and booklets (TaMHS + booklets, 162 schools) just TaMHS (TaMHS only, 162 schools) just booklets (Booklets only, 76 schools) and neither TaMHS nor booklets (No intervention, 77 schools)” (p. 317) | Two booklets were created: “How to Get Up and Go When You’re Feeling Low” (aimed at young people aged 8–11) and “I Gotta Feeling” (aimed at young people aged 11–14) | Pre- and post-surveys were completed using a secure online system | Help-seeking from a counsellor, peer mentor or another source in school | Participants were shown five booklets post-intervention and asked if they had seen them. Booklets comprised the two intervention booklets, two genuine booklets not distributed by the research team and one sham booklet. Help-seeking was assessed post-intervention, with participants asked if they had sought help from a counsellor, peer mentor or another source in school. Responses were measured on a four-point scale, from never to more than five times | There was no significant relationship between booklet uptake and mental health service use |
| Sugg | To explore help-seeking patterns in young people following the release of 13 Reasons Why Season 2 and the deaths (by suicide) | Quasi-experimental study | National sample. A total of 584,157 participants’ data were collected | The release of 13 reasons Why, a popular English language fictional Netflix show that grapples with adolescent suicide | Anonymized crisis text line data were obtained from January 20 to 31 October 2018 | Use of a national crisis text service | Daily counts of crisis text usage | Crisis conversation volume was 42% higher after the release of 13 Reasons Why Season 2 for six of the 18 days of the study period |
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