Peer Program Shows Promise in Detecting, Assisting High Schoolers With Depression

A peer depression program for high school students in Michigan increased their knowledge about depression, which could result in earlier detection of the condition and the negative impact it has on today ’s youth, according to astudy published today inPsychiatric Services in Advance.About 7.5% of adolescents in the United States had depression in the past year, and it is associated with poorer academic performance, functional impairment, recurrent depression later in adulthood, substance use, and suicide. The Peer-to-Peer Depression Awareness Program (P2P) aims to decrease mental illness and promote well-being in schools by empowering high school students as both learners and educators, wrote Sagar V. Parikh, M.D., of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and colleagues.For the study, 121 students across 10 high schools organized into small teams (5 to 30 students/team) and were trained to develop and implement peer-to-peer depression awareness campaigns school-wide. Program goals include improving the school climate around mental health, directing students to resources, and encouraging help-seeking behavior. A total of 878 students, including those who participated directly in the creation and implementation of the P2P projects (P2P “team members”) and those who were not on the P2P teams, filled out questionnaires about depression before and after exposure to P2P.At each school, about 71% of students who were not on the training and development teams said they were aw...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: adolescents depression P2P Peer-to-Peer Depression Awareness Program Psychiatric Services in Advance Sagar V. Parikh stigma teens youth Source Type: research