Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Jan 8:11:1294862.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1294862. eCollection 2023.

Reasons for non-participation of children and adolescents in a large-scale school-based mental health project

Sabrina Baldofski #  1 , Sarah-Lena Klemm #  1 , Elisabeth Kohls  1   2 , Sophia M E Mueller  1 , Stephanie Bauer  3 , Katja Becker  4   5 , Silke Diestelkamp  6 , Heike Eschenbeck  7 , Alisa Hiery  4 , Michael Kaess  8   9 , Julian Koenig  10 , Laya Lehner  7 , Markus Moessner  3 , Rainer Thomasius  6 , Christine Rummel-Kluge  1   2
Affiliations

Reasons for non-participation of children and adolescents in a large-scale school-based mental health project

Sabrina Baldofski et al. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Non-participation in mental health studies is an under-explored but very important topic. Investigating reasons for non-participation holds promise for the planning of future study designs and recruitment strategies. This study aimed at investigating reasons for children and adolescents (C&A) not participating in a school-based mental health research project.

Methods: Data collection took place within the school-based recruitment of a large-scale multi-site project ("ProHEAD-Promoting Help-seeking using E-technology for Adolescents") in Germany. Participants were N = 534 C&A aged ≥ 12 years attending secondary schools. The present cross-sectional study analyzed anonymous survey data of C&A who themselves or whose parents, respectively, did not provide written consent to participate in the mental health research project. The questionnaire consisted of 14 items covering potential reasons for non-participation, and four free text fields. Besides descriptive statistics, free text field answers were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.

Results: Students indicated an average of M = 2.94 (SD = 1.75) reasons for their non-participation in the project. In the descriptive analysis of indicated items, the three most frequently reported reasons for non-participation included students reporting to not be concerned by the topic "mental health" (n = 290, 54.3%), not having returned the consent form to the teacher (n = 175, 32.8%), and not having time for participation (n = 149, 27.9%). In the qualitative content analysis, the most frequently assigned categories were organizational reasons (n = 216, 57.1%), general disinterest in study participation (n = 139, 36.8%), and personal attitudes toward the topic "mental health" (n = 84, 22.2%), such as not being concerned with the topic "mental health" (n = 23, 6.1%) or being too concerned with the topic "mental health" (n = 16, 4.2%).

Conclusion: The study provides unique insights into reasons for C&A and their caregivers not participating in a large federally funded mental health research project. The results suggest that in order to increase participation rates, stigma should be reduced, parents as well as teachers should be involved where possible, and the use of incentives might be helpful. The study highlights the importance of assessing reasons for non-participation, especially in online intervention studies on mental health.

Keywords: adolescence; children; mental health; non-participation; online intervention; school-based study.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

KB has received honorary from Georg Thieme Publisher during the last 5 years outside and independent of the submitted work. CR-K received lecture honoraria from Recordati and Servier outside and independent of the submitted work. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

References

    1. Kieling C, Baker-Henningham H, Belfer M, Conti G, Ertem I, Omigbodun O, et al. Child and adolescent mental health worldwide: evidence for action. Lancet. (2011) 378:1515–25. 10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60827-1 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Meherali S, Punjani N, Louie-Poon S, Rahim KA, Das JK, Salam RA, et al. Mental health of children and adolescents amidst COVID-19 and past pandemics: a rapid systematic review. Int J Environ Res Public Health. (2021) 18:149. 10.20944/preprints202103.0149.v1 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ihle W, Esser G. Epidemiologie psychischer Störungen im Kindes- und Jugendalter. Psychologische Rundschau. (2002) 53:159–69. 10.1026//0033-3042.53.4.159 - DOI
    1. Merikangas KR, Nakamura EF, Kessler RC. Epidemiology of mental disorders in children and adolescents. Dialog Clin Neurosci. (2009) 11:7–20. 10.31887/DCNS.2009.11.1/krmerikangas - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gibb SJ, Fergusson DM, Horwood LJ. Burden of psychiatric disorder in young adulthood and life outcomes at age 30. Br J Psychiatry. (2010) 197:122–7. 10.1192/bjp.bp.109.076570 - DOI - PubMed

Publication types