Adolescence can be a period of intense mental stress, which increases the risk of both anxiety and depression in this age group. To mitigate this trend, schools in the United Kingdom have assessed the efficacy of a stress workshop program targeting young people between 16 and 18 years of age. This program was part of an investigation under the Brief Educational Workshops in Secondary Schools Trial (BESST).
The results of BESST were recently published in The Lancet , wherein researchers report the clinical and cost-effectiveness of the workshop at six months as compared to standard treatment. Study: Clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a brief accessible cognitive behavioral therapy programme for stress in school-aged adolescents (BESST): a cluster randomised controlled trial in the UK. Image Credit: SeventyFour / Shutterstock.
com Over 50% of mental health disorders in adults manifest before the age of 15, with 75% of these issues developing by 18 years of age. Over 25% of individuals between 17 and 19 years of age were estimated to have a mental health disorder in 2022, which increased from 17% in 2021. Moreover, approximately 60% of children and adolescents with clinically diagnosable mental health disorders in the U.
K. do not receive specialist care through the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). Some evidence suggests that specialist cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) could be more effective than other interventions, particularly for older adol.