Mental Health Training for Elementary Teachers Through Tele-education and Its Impact on the School Atmosphere

The purpose of this study is to create a web-based interactive educational environment to train elementary teachers, to identify children and adolescents in need of specialized mental health care and give them some advises in managing problematic children in class. After the creation of such an educational environment the psychoeducational project was tested in order to verify it's effectiveness.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Mental Disorders
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Web-based interactive education; Behavioral: Text and Video-based education

Detailed Description

Objectives: To develop and test the efficacy of a computer-based training to elementary school teachers of the most common mental health problems.

Outcomes: (a)early identification of the most common mental health problems among children and adolescents, (b)teacher's acquirement of manage skills to better deal with behavior problems and (c)teacher's acquisition of important knowledge to refer students to treatment when necessary.

Method: This research includes two steps: a pilot project (already implemented, whose data will be presented here) and a randomized clinical trial intervention (that will be implemented in a few months).

1. Pilot project, without control group - Comprehended six sessions of educational videos covering basic concepts of mental health stigma and the main disorders that affects children and adolescents followed by discussion forums, quizzes and a conclusion web conferencing with a specialist.
2. A randomized controlled trial with a sample of 176 teachers from nine elementary schools were randomly divided in three groups: a web-based interactive educational group (WBIE), a text and video-based educational group (TWBE) and a waiting list group (WL).

Outcome measures: knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of teachers in mental health and satisfaction with the training received.

Results: The results show that there was an increase in knowledge, attitude changes in mental health and reducing stigma among teachers of web-based interactive educational group. Indeed, comparing the three groups of study participants (WBIE, TVBE and WL), was verified that TVBE group compared with WL group did not show a significant statistical difference (B = 0.957, p = 0.127). Comparing WBIE with WL group, the WBIE answers correctly 1:44 (B = 1.44, p = 0.015). Regarding beliefs and attitudes, WBIE group increased significantly in the ability to identify children with mental health problems, search for mental health information, the ability to recognize colleagues with mental health problems. The average confidence in helping a student with mental health problems also showed increased after psychoeducational intervention in WBIE group.

Discussion: After adjusting educational tools, the methodology and with a bigger sample it's expected to have greater positive results. It's very important to offer teachers a basic apparatus so that they will be able to deal with mental health issues in schools.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 213
• Phase: Early Phase 1

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Primary Public Schools of Campos do Jordão City
• Internet Access

Exclusion Criteria:

• none

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Web-based interactive educational group; This group was submited to the web-based interactive education created for train teachers in child mental health, how to identify mental health problems in children and to know how to deal with problematic children in class.	Behavioral: Web-based interactive education; An educational program for training teachers and educators to better recognize mental health problems in adolescents and children; Behavioral: Text and Video-based education; This group received the material that composed the web-based education environment without any kind of interactivity. This material was composed by some videos about children mental health and a support text.
Experimental: Text and Video-based education; This group received the material that composed the web-based education environment without any kind of interactivity. This material was composed by some videos about children mental health and a support text.	Behavioral: Web-based interactive education; An educational program for training teachers and educators to better recognize mental health problems in adolescents and children; Behavioral: Text and Video-based education; This group received the material that composed the web-based education environment without any kind of interactivity. This material was composed by some videos about children mental health and a support text.
No Intervention: Waiting List group; This group was used as control group and did not receive any intervention.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Knowledge in Child and Adolescents Mental Health, beliefs and attitudes in Child Mental Health	Questions about knowledge, beliefs and attitudes in Child and Adolescents Mental Health applied before and after the intervention.	baseline and 1 month (just after the intervention)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Sao Paulo
• Collaborators: Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Euripedes Miguel, Full Prof, University of Sao Paulo

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: January 1, 2010
• Primary Completion (Actual): December 1, 2011
• Study Completion (Actual): July 1, 2012

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: May 7, 2013
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 19, 2013
• First Posted (Estimate): May 22, 2013

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimate): May 22, 2013
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 19, 2013
• Last Verified: May 1, 2013

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: mental health; effectiveness; distance learning
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders
• Other Study ID Numbers: 573974/2008-0