The Adolescent Mental Health and the Developing Mind programme includes 13 awards for methodological innovations.
These are developing innovative new approaches and novel research methods, concepts, tools and measures to build capability in the field of adolescent mental health research.
Loneliness in the digital world: Co-developing smartphone-based research to examine how online social experiences impact adolescent mental health
Prof Heather Whalley and her team at the University of Edinburgh are exploring a method of data collection that involves collecting brief snapshots of data several times a day through smartphone apps – a method called Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA).
They worked with young people to produce guidance about using this approach with this age group. They tested the method in a study of how young people’s loneliness and wellbeing are impacted by online and offline social acceptance and rejection. The data they generate will be shared with other researchers via the Generation Scotland study, and are co-producing guidance for conducting EMA research ethically and effectively.
Advancing measurement of gender and sexual dimensions of adolescent mental health and wellbeing: Addressing a missing link
Professor Kirstin Mitchell and her colleagues at the University of Glasgow have created tools and resources to help mental health researchers and those who provide mental health services to ask the right questions as they seek to understand the links between mental health and sexual wellbeing, and to ensure that young people's concerns are properly understood. The team have collated relevant measures and designed and tested a new measure of sexual wellbeing for use with young people aged 14 to 19. They have also developed a set of curated research tools, resources, and guidance for the mental health research community.
The automated coding of expressed emotion to enhance clinical and epidemiological mental health research in adolescence
The ‘five minute speech sample’ (FMSS) explores the way that parents talk. Data from the FMSS can provide useful information about children’s risk of future mental health difficulties, but it can be complex to code. Professor Johnny Downs and colleagues at Kings College London have developed a new way of analysing these data through automated coding, with promising results. Creative workshops with young people and parents and carers have also highlighted important considerations in creating novel technologies for children and young people’s mental healthcare. The team are continuing to build on findings to make the FMSS easier to use, opening up many more possibilities for its use in studies. In time. this could also benefit clinical practice.
A new methodology linking interactional and experiential approaches, and involving young people as co-analysts of mental health encounters (the ‘'Agency-in-Practice' project)
Conversations about mental health can be analysed in different ways. Interactional approaches focus on how the conversation unfolds: who says what, and where does that lead? While phenomenological approaches focus on how people make sense of their experience of the conversation. To overcome limitations with both methods and to gain more powerful insights, Dr Michael Larkin and his colleagues have brought these methods together to explore young people’s experiences of seeking help for their mental health.
Young people have been involved as co-analysts, extending the traditional ways in which young people are involved in mental health research. Outputs from the project will enable qualitative researchers to capture a much fuller picture of young people's experiences, and to work much more equitably alongside young people. The project has also produced findings about young people’s experiences of seeking help for their mental health, which have informed resources for young people and professionals.
MEN-MINDs Project: Co-producing change for better mental health for adolescent young men at the margins
Young men are less likely than young women to be diagnosed with common mental health disorders, but are at greater risk of poor mental health outcomes such as substance misuse or suicide. This may reflect underlying rates of mental health issues, but also other factors such as help-seeking behaviours, the availability of mental health supports and how services engage and work with young men.
Certain groups of young men are more likely to experience exclusion, discrimination and poor mental health outcomes, such as young men who get in to conflict with the law, who identify as LGBTQI+, or who have migrated to the UK. Dr Nina Vaswani and colleagues worked with marginalised young men to understand the barriers to taking part in mental health research, and co-designed more engaging research methods for the young men to explore masculine identities, mental health and mental health supports with their peers. Innovative outputs including a comic have been taken up by statutory, third sector and other organisations.
Developing a measure of social understanding for 15- 24-year-olds that is appropriate, fair, valid, and theoretically motivated
The ability to understand other people’s mental states, known as ‘mindreading’ is an important aspect of people’s ability to build, manage and maintain social relationships, which predicts loneliness, later mental health difficulties and other struggles. Young people’s social worlds change dramatically during adolescence, and Professor Ian Apperley’s team has developed an appropriate, valid and sensitive measure of mind-reading for this age group that works equally well for different demographic groups. The team have used it to provide the first evidence that social understanding is a stable trait that can be measured reliably in this age range. This paves the way for use by a wide range of researchers on many projects.
#So.Me: Development and validation of the Social Media Experience measure: Using objective assessment and adolescents' experience to inform its development
The increased use of social media among young people has attracted the attention of the public, the media and the government, and has led to growing concerns about its impact on young people's mental health, wellbeing and levels of loneliness. Research on this area is however relatively new and with mixed findings. Recent evidence suggests a weaker link between social media use and mental health, and the importance of considering its benefits as well as risks.
There are flaws in the measures and methods that researchers use to explore young people’s social media use. With young people, Dr Margarita Panayiotou and her colleagues have co-developed a smartphone app and comprehensive self-report measure of social media experience that is firmly rooted in young people’s accounts of how and why they use social media, and what they think the key issues and benefits are. They have also developed PSHE lessons to support young people’s digital literacy.
Capturing loneliness across youth: Co-production of a new developmentally sensitive scale
Loneliness is common among young people and has become a public health issue worldwide. Yet many current questionnaires measuring youth loneliness were developed without the input of young people, raising questions about their authenticity and validity. Professor Jennifer Lau and her team have worked with young people in arts workshops and focus groups to get a better picture of what loneliness means to young people, and used these findings to create and pilot-test a new questionnaire that reflects loneliness as it is experienced from early adolescence to early adulthood. The team will be sharing information on best practice for how to apply the measure in future loneliness research. It will also be valuable for those working to understand and address youth loneliness through programmes and interventions.
U-Belong - The time of their lives? Developing Concepts and Methods to Understand Loneliness in Students
University students are surrounded by peers. They often live with friends and have many opportunities to socialise. Yet loneliness is a growing concern among university students, and young people report high levels of loneliness. Dr Nicola Byrom and colleagues have explored the concept of loneliness, working with students to co-create accurate and sensitive ways of representing their experiences.
Exploring the history of student experience, investigating the links between loneliness and other concepts (e.g. a sense of belonging, social connections and expectations), and developing new tools to explore differences in loneliness, the team have developed a strong theoretical framework and approach to measurement that will benefit future research. The U-Belong toolkit includes personal stories, practical tips and evidence-based insights on building a sense of belonging, including curated information for different groups of students.
LifeSim: Long-Term Modelling Tools for Adolescent Mental Health and Wellbeing Research
Research into the impact of interventions to prevent and manage adolescent mental health problems typically only follows young people up for one to three years, making it hard to tell how long effects will last, what the long-term economic and social consequences will be in later life, and how this will vary between young people in different circumstances.
Professor Richard Cookson and his team are addressing this by developing a better approach to long-term modelling of intervention effects on adolescent mental health and wellbeing. They have developed a computer programme predicting the long-term consequences and public cost impacts of short-term effects on adolescent health and wellbeing from age 11 to 17, for different kinds of adolescents in different family, neighbourhood and school environments. They are testing this in example studies, ahead of making the tool readily available to other researchers, who can use and refine the approach in future studies.
CELEBRATE: Co-producing a framework of guiding principles for engaging representative and diverse cohorts of young people in biological research in mental health
Biological research, such as studying blood, saliva or brain scans, can help us understand how the things we experience in the world can make physical changes to our mind, body and brain. This type of research needs improving as many young people - especially those from disadvantaged or minority groups - do not participate or drop out of such studies, meaning the results do not represent all young people in the UK.
Professor Paola Dazzan and her colleagues, together with young people, have developed a ‘Framework of Guiding Principles’ to support better engagement of young people in biological research. This covers aspects such as how young people prefer to be approached about research, what would make them interested to stay involved, what roles they would like to play in the research team, and what benefits they would like to see from taking part. The Framework will support researchers to carry out better, more inclusive research in the future.
Creating Research Ecologies to Advance Transdisciplinary lEarning (CREATE) on arts-based programs through the study of adolescent loneliness
Arts-based mental health research, using creative practices like music, theatre, dance, drawing, poetry is enjoyed by many young people and can bring new insights and understanding about adolescent mental health in ways that traditional, often adult-led, research methods cannot. There is untapped potential to improve understanding of mental health if we could bring arts-approaches together with science and youth perspectives but this is held back by many research barriers.
Professor Paul Cooke and his colleagues have addressed these barriers by bringing young people, artists and scientists together in Living Labs. Using the topic of young people’s loneliness to stimulate discussions about methods and interpretation, young people developed their own ‘Not So Alone’ campaign to generate action and discussion. They have brought their findings together in a hub of resources including teaching tools, frameworks, glossaries, analysis methods and good practice guides, which have been disseminated widely to those who are researching at the intersection of arts, science and youth voice, via podcasts, films, webinars and other events.
SOCITS: A SOCial sITuational Systems approach to measuring and modelling influences on adolescent mental health
Most mental health survey research asks questions about how individual young people feel in general. Dr Mark McCann and his team have developed a method that takes better account of the important situations in young people’s lives, the different social interactions that happen in those situations, and the connections between the ‘system’ of people around a young person.
The team have tested this SOCial SITuational Systems or SOCITS approach in a study conducted by young co-researchers on how situations in secondary school might affect stress, loneliness, mental health and attitudes. Their findings have been used to develop a survey and a computer-generated artificial school that can be used to test out what would happen if situations in school were changed, and their methods have been shared in webinars.