Shroff A, Roulston C, Fassler J, Dierschke N, Todd J, Ríos-Herrera Á, Plastino K, Schleider J. A Digital Single-Session Intervention Platform for Youth Mental Health: Cultural Adaptation, Evaluation, and Dissemination. JMIR Ment Health 2023;10:e43062. DOI: 10.2196/43062
An academic-community partnership was created to culturally adapt, disseminate, and gauge the acceptability and utility of an evidence-based digital mental health platform, Project Youth Empowerment and Support (YES), among English and Spanish speaking youth in south Texas. The three digital self-guided single-session interventions (SSIs) in Project YES were culturally adapted and revised in collaboration with youth stakeholders and translated to Spanish. pre-post exploratory study investigated acceptability and efficacy of Project YES on hopelessness, agency, perceived control, and self-hate. Participants aged 11 to 17 years and residing in San Antonio, Texas and the surrounding areas were recruited via social media ads, referrals, schools, and community centers. A total of 1801 youths began and 894 (49.6%) selected and completed one 30-minute SSI within the Project YES website. Data was collected via self-reported surveys before participants started a SSI and following the completion of the SSI. Participants rated the Project YES as enjoyable, easy to understand, easy to use, helpful, and would recommend to others (mean at least 3.5 out of 5.0) for both language versions Youth in Project YES (English version) reported significant improvements in hopelessness (Cohen d=0.33, p<.001), self-hate (Cohen d=0.27, p<.001) and agency (Cohen d=0.25, p<.001) post-intervention, relative to pre-intervention. Youth in Project YES (Spanish version) reported significant improvements in self-hate (Cohen d=0.37, p=.05) from before to after the intervention. Overall, the culturally adapted Project YES demonstrated to be an acceptable, accessible, and effective mental health support for English and Spanish speaking youth. The San Antonio community partnerships fostered broad recruitment and retention rates.