The Anna Freud Centre’s online research library contains a collection of evidence-based material on children and young people’s mental health, written and co-written by our team. The research explores factors relating to:
anxiety | behavioural difficulties | depression | digital mental health | empowering young people and families | early years | evaluation | fostering and adoption | intervention | maltreatment and abuse | measures | mentalization | methodology | neurodiversity | parents and carers| prevalence and trends | prevention | psychological therapies | resources | risk and resilience | social care | trauma | wellbeing
The library is managed by our team of evidence experts. It is updated on a regular basis and currently consists of research published between 2018 and 2023.
Please be aware that links to our open-access papers lead to external sites and that the management, data handling and administration of these external sites is not the Anna Freud Centre’s responsibility.
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Patient and public involvement in youth mental health research: protocol for a systematic review of practices and impact
Youth patient and public involvement (PPI) has been an understudied area. This protocol paper describes a new project that aims to summarize what is known about PPI with young people in mental health research.
Authors: Sales, C., et al. (2021).
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Psychotherapy dropout: using the Adolescent Psychotherapy Q-set to explore the early in-session process of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy
There is a dearth of research on the actual therapy process and investigation of the interaction between patient and therapist. This study aims to address this paucity through the utilisation of the Adolescent Psychotherapy Q-set (APQ) to examine the early treatment period.
Authors: Fredum, H., Rost, F., Ulberg, R., Midgley, N., Thoren, A., Aker, J., Johansen, H., Sandvand, L., Tosterud, L., & Dahl, H. (2021).
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The Reflective Fostering Programme – improving the wellbeing of children in care through a group intervention for foster carers: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial
Research suggests that supporting the carer-child relationship, by promoting the carer’s reflective parenting, may be an effective approach to improving the wellbeing of these children.
Authors: Midgley, N., Irvine, K., Rider, B. et al. (2021).
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Expert clinicians’ prototypes of an adolescent treatment: common and unique factors among four treatment models
This study aimed investigate (1) whether expert clinicians within psychodynamic therapy, mentalization based treatment (MBT), cognitive behavioral therapy and interpersonal psychotherapy agree on the essential adolescent psychotherapy processes using the Adolescent Psychotherapy Q-Set (APQ); (2) whether these four session prototypes can be empirically distinguished; and (3) whether mentalization is a shared component in expert clinicians’ conceptualisations of these four treatment models.
Authors: Goodman, G., Calderon, A., & Midgley, N. (2021).
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What contributes to good outcomes? The perspective of young people on short-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy for depressed adolescents
This study aimed to elucidate what adolescents value in treatment by inductively exploring lived experiences of Short Term Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (STPP).
Authors: Housby, H., Thackeray, L. and Midgley, N. (2021).
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The experience of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in depressed adolescents who are fatigued
Fatigue is a common and debilitating symptom of major depressive disorder (MDD). Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a recommended psychological treatment for adolescents with moderate to severe depression. This study explored the experience of CBT in fatigued adolescents with MDD.
Authors: Herring, G., Loades, M., Higson-Sweeney, N., Hards, E., Reynolds, S., & Midgley, N. (2021).
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"It’s always difficult when it’s family… whereas when you're talking to a therapist…" Parents’ views of cognitive behaviour therapy for depressed adolescents
Little is known about how parents experience their child’s psychological therapy. We aimed to explore parents’ experiences of their adolescent child’s cognitive behavioural therapy for depression.
Authors: Schlimm, K., Loades, M., Hards, E., Reynolds, S., Parkinson, M. & Midgley, N. (2021).
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The experience of sleep problems for depressed adolescents in short-term psychological therapy
The present study aimed to qualitatively explore the experience of sleep problems in adolescents with depression, including their understanding of how a psychological therapy impacted on these sleep difficulties.
Authors: Jernslett, M., Thackeray, L., Orchard, F., & Midgley, N. (2021).
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Associations between baseline cortisol and trajectory of symptom improvement in depressed adolescents receiving psychological therapy
The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between both morning and evening salivary cortisol levels and response to psychological therapy in depressed adolescents participating in one large randomised controlled trial.
Authors: Chadha, A., Goodyer, I., Fonagy, P., Midgley, N., IMPACT Consortium & Wilkinson, P. (2021).
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Cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between psychotic and depressive symptoms in depressed adolescents
Depressed adolescents aged 11–17 with and without psychotic symptoms were compared on depression severity scores at baseline and at 28- or 42-week follow-up in two large UK cohorts.
Authors: Kehinde, F., Bharmal, A., Goodyer, I., Kelvin, R., Dubicka, B., Midgley, N., Fonagy, P., Jones, P., Wilkinson, P. & IMPACT Consortium (2021).