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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Effectiveness of current psychological interventions to improve emotion regulation in youth: a meta-analysis
Most emotion regulation (ER) research has neglected young people, therefore the present meta-analysis summarizes the evidence for existing psychosocial intervention and their effectiveness to improve ER in youth.
Authors: Moltrecht, B., Edbrooke-Childs, J., Deighton, J., Patalay, P. (2020).
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Promoting mental health and wellbeing in schools: examining mindfulness, relaxation and strategies for safety and wellbeing in English primary and secondary schools: study protocol for a multi-school, cluster randomised controlled trial (INSPIRE)
This protocol describes a four-arm cluster randomised controlled trial, investigating the effectiveness of three different interventions when compared to usual provision, in English primary and secondary pupils.
Authors: Hayes, D., Moore, A., Stapley, E., Humphrey, N., Mansfield, R., Santos, J., Ashworth, E., Patalay, P., Bonin, E. M., Moltrecht, B., Boehnke, J. R., & Deighton, J. (2019).
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Systematic review and meta-analysis: outcomes of routine specialist mental health care for young people with depression and/or anxiety
Depression and anxiety are the most prevalent mental health problems in young people, yet almost nothing is known about what outcomes are to be expected at the individual level following routine treatment. This paper sets out to address this gap.
Authors: Bear, H., Edbrooke-Childs, J., Norton, S., Krause, K., & Wolpert, M. (2019)
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Increasing person‐centred care in paediatrics
The aim of this article is to evaluate ‘Me first’, a training programme aimed at improving clinicians’ attitudes and communication skills when working with paediatric patients.
Authors: Hayes, D., Edbrooke-Childs, J., Martin, K., Reid, J., Brown, R., McCulloch, J. & Morton, L. (2019).
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Associations between mental health competence and indicators of physical health and cognitive development in eleven year olds: findings from the UK Millennium Cohort Study
We aimed to construct a measure of mental health competence (MHC), a skills-based assessment of positive mental health, using existing survey items in a representative sample of UK children, and to investigate its overlap with mental health difficulties (MHD), socio-demographic patterning, and relationships with physical health and cognitive development.
Authors: Hope, S., Rougeaux, E., Deighton, J., Law, C. & Pearce, A. (2019).
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The Child Outcome Rating Scale: validating a four-item measure of psychosocial functioning in community and clinic samples of children aged 10–15
This paper describes psychometric analysis of the Child Outcome Rating Scale (CORS), a brief and highly accessible self-report measure of young people’s psychosocial functioning already used extensively by mental health professionals around the world but with only limited data on psychometric robustness.
Authors: Casey, P., Patalay, P., Deighton, J., Miller, S.D, Wolpert, M. (2019).
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Service- and practitioner-level variation in non-consensual dropout from child mental health services
The objective of this study was to examine whether there were service- and practitioner-level variation in non-consensual dropout in child mental health services.
Authors: Edbrooke-Childs, J., Boehnke, J.R., Zamperoni, V., Calderon, A., Whale, A. (2019).
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School-based intervention study examining approaches for well-being and mental health literacy of pupils in Year 9 in England: study protocol for a multischool, parallel group cluster randomised controlled trial (AWARE)
This protocol describes a three-arm, parallel group cluster randomised controlled trial, investigating the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of two interventions, alongside a process and implementation evaluation, to improve mental health and well-being of Year 9 pupils in English secondary schools.
Authors: Hayes, D., Moore, A., Stapley, E., Humphrey, N., Mansfield, R., Santos, J., Ashworth, A., Patalay, P., Bonin, E., Boehnke, J. R., Deighton, J. (2019).
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Barriers and facilitators to shared decision making in child and youth mental health: young person and parent perspectives using the Theoretical Domains Framework
Shared decision making is increasingly being suggested as an integral part of mental health provision. Yet, there is little research on what clinicians believe the barriers and facilitators around practice to be.
Authors: Hayes, D., Edbrooke-Childs, J., Town, R., Wolpert, M., & Midgley, N. (2019).
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Coping with the stresses of daily life in England: a qualitative study of self-care strategies and social and professional support in early adolescence
The aim of our study was to examine early adolescents’ perspectives on and experiences of coping with the problems, difficult situations and feelings that can arise in daily life in England.
Authors: Stapley, E., Demkowicz, O., Eisenstadt, M., Wolpert, M., & Deighton, J. (2019).