ArticleJMIR human factors2026
Digital Mental Health Promotion Services for Youth: A Qualitative Study of Help-Seeking Through Mindhelper.dk.
Article in JMIR human factors, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
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.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Young people increasingly experience mental health challenges and often turn to the internet for support. Self-guided digital mental health promotion services have become widely used resources for youth seeking help and guidance. These platforms offer accessible, anonymous support, yet little is known about the concerns young people articulate when engaging with them. Objective: This study aims to examine inquiries submitted to the digital letter box of Mindhelper.dk, Denmark's most widely used digital mental health promotion service. Using qualitative analysis, the study aims to identify recurring themes in young people's mental health concerns, explore gender differences in engagement, and generate insights to inform the development of more relevant and targeted digital self-help interventions. Methods: Using an inductive thematic approach informed by a constructivist-grounded theory coding framework, this study analyzes 2523 inquiries submitted to the Mindhelper digital letter box between March 2016 and August 2023. The dataset provides unsolicited first-person accounts from young people in moments of emotional vulnerability, offering insights into how mental health concerns are articulated in naturalistic settings. Results: The analysis identifies 17 recurring themes reflecting the mental health challenges young people seek help for. These were grouped into 3 overarching analytical categories: Social Relationships and Social Contexts, Emotional Life, and Body and Illness, with the first 2 dominating the material. Prominent themes included Sociality, Love Life, Unease, Self-doubt and Insecurity, and Seeking Support. Across genders, inquiries frequently focused on social relationships, particularly Sociality and Love Life. However, girls were markedly overrepresented among users, while only minor gender differences were observed in the distribution of themes. Conclusions: The findings suggest that young people's mental health concerns are closely tied to everyday developmental and relational challenges rather than severe psychopathology alone. Digital letter box services may capture early expressions of distress that might not otherwise reach formal support systems. This highlights the preventive potential of such services and the value of using self-initiated digital data to inform the development of relevant digital mental health support and better understand how young people articulate and act on emerging mental health concerns.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
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.