The impact of area level mental health interventions on outcomes for secondary school pupils: Evidence from the HeadStart programme in England.

In light of the dramatic rise in mental health disorders amongst adolescents seen in the past decade across the world, there is an urgent need for robust evidence on what works to combat this trend. This paper provides the first robust evaluation of the impacts on school outcomes of 6-year funding programme (HeadStart) for area-level mental health interventions for adolescents. Exploiting educational administrative data on ten cohorts of state-educated secondary school students, we use the synthetic control method to construct counterfactual outcomes for areas that received the funding. We show that the funding did not affect students' absenteeism or academic attainment, but it prevented around 800 students (c. 10% of students typically excluded yearly) from being excluded in its first year. The transient nature of this effect suggests that sustained funding for intervention may be a necessary but not sufficient condition to maintain programme effectiveness over time.

The Influence of Consumer Purchases on Purchase-Related Happiness: A Serial Mediation of Commitment and Selective Information Processing.

In the literature on material and experiential purchases, it has consistently been demonstrated that the relationship between the consumer's purchase type and purchase-related happiness favors experiential purchases. This research aims to extend the literature by examining how experiential purchases lead to greater purchase-related happiness due to the individual's processing of external information, especially in the online review context. An experiment was conducted to show that experiential purchases lead to greater commitment to decisions and a higher relative reliance on positive reviews (as opposed to negative reviews) than material purchases. The results of a serial mediation test indicate that such differences lead to greater purchase-related happiness. Based on these findings, we can deepen our understanding of the relationship between purchase type and purchase-related happiness from the perspective of information processing.

The Effect of Power Distance Belief on the Evaluation of Experiential and Material Purchases.

Depending on the level of power distance belief (PDB), individuals have different motivations to compare themselves with other people. This study suggests that the relationship between purchase type (material versus experiential) and purchase evaluation is moderated by PDB. Furthermore, the effect of purchase type and PDB on purchase evaluation is mediated through comparison motivation. To investigate the effect of PDB on the evaluation, we conducted two experiments by manipulating a 2 (purchase type: material vs. experiential purchase) × 2 (PDB: low vs. high) between-subjects design. In the case of experiential purchases, individuals with high PDB exhibit lower purchase evaluations than those with low PDB, as they are more inclined to compare these with other experiential goods (study 1). Conversely, under material purchases, the impact of PDB on purchase evaluation does not differ as material purchases already motivate individuals to compare other material goods (study 1). Additionally, individuals with high PDB are more motivated to compare purchases due to their greater need for structure (study 2). Our findings provide guidelines for the development of advertising strategy with social networking services and live-streaming commerce platforms.

Gender difference in the change of adolescents' mental health and subjective wellbeing trajectories.

Gender differences in adolescents' mental health problems have been extensively reported. Yet, there is limited research in exploring longitudinal trends in mental health and wellbeing between boys and girls. This study investigated any emerging developmental trends of gender differences in mental health problems and subjective wellbeing for young people from early to mid-adolescence in England. A longitudinal group of 8612 young people's mental health and subjective wellbeing trajectories were investigated between the period of ages 11/12 and 13/14. Mental health difficulties and subjective wellbeing were measured using the child self-report Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and Short Warwick and Edinburgh Wellbeing Scale (SWEMWBS), respectively. Any gender difference in the change of adolescents' mental health and subjective wellbeing over 3 year period were estimated using multi-level regression while accounting for various socio-demographic and resilience factors. Young people are at increased risk of mental health problems between the ages of 11 and 14, particularly girls. The overall difficulty levels reported by girls were significantly higher than boys across a range of mental health problems and subjective wellbeing. These developmental trends persisted after controlling for a broad range of potential confounders. Young people has shown clear signs of mental distress as they get older. This escalation was particularly evident among girls. Distress can come at the time of significant physical, emotional, and social changes in an adolescents' life, and can be heightened during secondary school transition. This evidence highlights the importance of early intervention to reduce risk of distress.

The role of mental health symptomology and quality of life in predicting referrals to special child and adolescent mental health services.

BACKGROUND: Children and adolescents' mental health problems have been largely assessed with conventional symptom scales, for example, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) given that it is one of the mostly widely used measures in specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). However, this emphasis on symptom scales might have missed some important features of the mental health challenges that children and young people experience including day to day functioning and life satisfaction aspect (i.e. qualify of life). METHOD: The study examined longitudinal association between a young person's self-perceptions of quality of life and mental health difficulties and referral to specialist CAMHS service using a population cohort study (Targeted Mental Health in Schools service data) nested within a large-scale linkage between school (National Pupil Data base) and child mental health service administrative data (South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust children and adolescent mental health services health records). Cox proportional hazard regression to estimate crude and adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for the association between participant psychopathology, and incidence of CAMHS referral. RESULTS: Pupils experiencing more behavioural difficulties, had an increased incidence of CAMHS referral (adjusted hazard ratio 1.1, 95% confidence interval 1.0-1.2). However, pupils who reported higher health related quality of life had a lower incidence of CAMHS referral over the follow-up period (adjusted hazard hario 0.94, 95% confidence interval 0.9-0.98). CONCLUSION: Children and young people's perception of their quality of life should be considered at the stages of a clinical needs assessment.