SynthesisPloS one2023
Effectiveness of school-based psychological interventions for the treatment of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials.
Synthesis in PloS one, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Enhancing Mental Health and Psychosocial Support for Adolescents and Young Adults Through the Asenze Impilo Project: Protocol for a Human-Centered Design Study.JMIR research protocols · 2026Article
- Unignorable burden of mental health disorders among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa: a call for urgent action.BMJ global health · 2026Article
- Psychosocial interventions for depression and anxiety for female adolescents in Sub-Saharan Africa: a protocol for the systematic literature review and lived experience synthesis.Systematic reviews · 2026Article
- Psychological readiness for national examinations: study habits, anxiety, and motivation among secondary school students in Somaliland.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Protocol for a mixed-methods pilot study on the feasibility of TABATA training to alleviate moderate to severe psychological stress in Chinese middle school students.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Article
- Psychological therapies for post-traumatic stress disorder in children and adolescents.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2025Article
- Correlates of behavioral and emotional disorders among school-going adolescents in Uganda.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Understanding the mental health of adolescents and young adults in rural South Africa through participatory research.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Identifying contextual barriers and facilitators in implementing non-specialist interventions for mental health in Sri Lanka: A qualitative study with mental health workers and community members.Global mental health (Cambridge, England) · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMental disorders among adolescents represent a high burden and early onset. They compromise their physical health, survival, and future potential. On the other hand, young people have inadequate access to essential health services in sub-Saharan Africa. We aimed to review school-based psychological interventions, contents, delivery, and evidence of effectiveness designed to treat depression, anxiety, or posttraumatic stress symptoms among adolescents and young adults aged 10-24.
methodWe searched articles on the following databases: PubMed, Scopus, Embase, and Science Direct from 17/10/2022 to 30/12/2022. Furthermore, relevant studies were searched from advanced google scholar, google and identified reference lists. We used MeSH browser for key words: psychological interventions, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder and lists of Sub-Saharan Africa countries. We combined words using standard Boolean operators (OR, AND). The quality of studies was evaluated using the Cochrane Collaboration's risk of bias tool and the results were presented as a narrative synthesis since the interventions were very heterogenous.
resultsFourteen randomized controlled trials were included for systematic review and more than half (57.14%) were from Kenya and Nigeria. Common school-based psychological interventions were cognitive behavioral therapy and Shamiri interventions (an intervention that focuses on youths to cultivate a growth mindset, practice gratitude and take the value). More than half (57.14%) of the interventions were delivered by non-specialists like teachers, lay providers and community health workers. Nearly one-fifth of the interventions were used individual modality. School-based psychological interventions provided by non-specialists also produced a greater reduction in adolescents' depressive, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress symptoms compared to the control groups.
conclusionCognitive behavioral therapy and Shamiri interventions were the common treatment delivered in school settings. The range of interventions could be effectively delivered by non- professionals that promote task-shifting of psychological interventions from very scarce mental health specialists in these countries.
trial registrationTrial Registration: Prospero CRD42022378372. https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42022378372.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.