%0 Journal Article
%T Impact of a school mental health program on children's and adolescents' socio-emotional skills and psychosocial difficulties
%J Children (Basel, Switzerland)
%D 2022
%A Colomeischi, Aurora Adina
%A Duca, Diana Sinziana
%A Bujor, Liliana
%A Rusu, Petruta Paraschiva
%A Grazzani, Ilaria
%A Cavioni, Valeria
%V 9
%N 11
%P e1661-e1661
%X The challenges of today's society demand high levels of socio-emotional skills in children and adolescents; therefore, mental health is an important issue to be addressed and promoted in schools. The present study aims to investigate the effectiveness of a school mental health program (Promoting Mental Health at Schools; PROMEHS) designed to promote socio-emotional learning and prevent psychosocial difficulties in children and adolescents. The study was conducted on a sample of 1392 students (evaluated by 104 teachers) from kindergarten (n = 446), primary school (n = 426), secondary school (n = 354), and high school (n = 166). A quasi-experimental study design with experimental and waitlist control groups was used to evaluate the program's effectiveness. Students were non-randomly assigned to the experimental (n = 895) and control group (n = 497). Students belonging to the experimental group received one-hour lessons once a week for 12 weeks. The teachers evaluated their students' social-emotional skills, strengths, and difficulties before and after the intervention. The results indicated the effectiveness of the PROMEHS program in improving social-emotional skills for all school levels, reducing internalizing problems in primary and secondary school children, and reducing externalizing issues for kindergarten and primary school children. The PROMEHS program is a promising approach to enhancing childrens' and adolescents' social and emotional skills and to decreasing psychosocial difficulties, such as internalizing and externalizing problems.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
%G en
%I MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
%@ 2227-9067
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children9111661