German Clinical Trials Register

Acronym/abbreviation of the study

tomoni.schools - An Online Training Intervention for Teachers (Study 1)

URL of the study

https://www.med.uni-wuerzburg.de/dzpp/studien/tomonischools/

Brief summary in lay language

No Entry

Brief summary in scientific language

Background: More than half of all mental disorders begin already in childhood and adolescence (Jones, 2013; Kessler et al., 2005). Mental illness affects about 13-14% of adolescents worldwide (UNICEF, 2021). Anxiety disorders, depression, externalizing disorders (e.g. ADHD, conduct disorder) and emotional disorders are particularly frequent (Polanczyk et al., 2015). Mental disorders are associated with lower life quality, life satisfaction and educational status and an increased risk for other mental health problems as well as higher somatic symptom burden (Schlack et al., 2021). Moreover, COVID-19 pandemic raised the risk of mental health issues in children and adolescents (Holtmann et al., 2023). Teachers play a key role in preventing severe courses of illness or chronification of mental disorders in children and adolescents. As gatekeeper, they can recognize first signs of mental problems in their students, they can approach them and, if necessary, refer them to the adequate services. For this responsible task, teachers need sufficient ‘Mental Health Literacy' (MHL), which is defined as knowledge and beliefs, which enable the recognition, management and prevention of mental disorders (Jorm et al., 1997). The aim is to increase the teachers’ ability to act when dealing with psychologically distressed students pupils and to strengthen the teachers’ confidence in their own abilities (Whitley et al., 2013). However, this does not mean teachers shall diagnose or treat mental disorders. They can notice displays of mental problems, speak respectfully with affected students, know their professional boundaries in such cases and refer those seeking help to the appropriate professional health care system. tomoni.schools training program: tomoni mental health gGmbh developed this online training program for teachers aiming to prevent mental health in children and adolescents. During the program teachers learn to recognize possible signs of mental health issues and to reach out to the pupils concerned in a respectful manner. The training program consists of eight modules, 90 minutes each. After completing the basic module, teachers can participate in seven specialist modules. All modules are divided in a section providing knowledge and a section enhancing the ability to act. Newly acquired strategies will be directly put into practice and trained in role plays. The modules will be presented by so-called 1) experts of daily life (group 1), who had experienced mental illness themselves or 2) scientific experts (group 2), who acquired broad expert knowledge about mental disorders in the context of their professional training and/or workplace (e.g. students of psychology, psychologists, psychotherapists in training, licensed psychotherapists/child and adolescent psychotherapists, psychiatrists/child and adolescent psychiatrists). Study design and method: The goal of the study is to evaluate the program tomoni.schools for teachers. In a further study, which will be submitted with a separate study protocol at the DRKS (German register of clinical trials), we will evaluate the program for pupils. In this study teachers will be assigned randomly to one of four experimental groups. Group 1 will receive the training program from experts of daily life over a period of three months. Group 2 will receive the training program from scientific experts over a period of three months. Teachers in group 3 are in the active control group. They will be provided with reading material about the modules (and supplementary videos). Group 4 is the passive control group and does not undergo any intervention during the study. After the last follow-up survey, teachers of group 3 and 4 can participate in the modules of tomoni.schools. To evaluate the program, follow-up survey data will be collected from the teachers 3 months after they completed the final module (T1). In order to examine the long-term effect of the program, another follow-up survey will be collected 12 months after the teachers finished the training program (T2). Following the guidelines of GCP (good clinical practice), we differentiate between primary and secondary outcomes in our study. The primary outcome is the teachers’ self-estimated readiness for action. Secondary outcomes comprise knowledge about mental diseases, stigmatization of mental illness, confidence in one’s own ability to act and general mental health. To our knowledge, no validated survey pertaining to the given research questions has yet been developed. Therefore, the working group created the 'Mental Health Literacy and Prevention Survey' (mHELP), which will be validated in the baseline measurement (T0) based on Classical test theory. For more instruments used in the study, see ‘Outcomes’. Data will be collected online via REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture). For statistical analyses, the current version of RStudio will be used (RStudio Team, 2020; http://www.rstudio.com/). Mixed models for continuous variables will be calculated with interactions between groups and time points at baseline (T0) and at follow-up (T2) to answer the research questions. Further analyses will include comparisons with time point at follow-up T1.