Extrait

Background and study aims Health and Safety Executive figures show secondary school teachers have higher rates of stress, depression and anxiety compared to the general working population. Interviews with teachers have found that they often feel unsupported with regard to their own mental health needs. Failure to support them adequately is likely to lead to poor wellbeing, and more serious long-term mental disorders, poor performance at work (often called presenteeism), sickness absence and ill health. Furthermore, teachers are expected to develop supportive relationships with students, and studies have shown this is important for student mental health. However, staff report difficulties in fulfilling this role due to the lack of support for their own needs, and a lack of training. Therefore improving the mental health support and training available for teachers may equip them to provide better quality support for students, with long-term gains for student mental health and academic attainment. This study will introduce and evaluate a brief course that aims to train teachers to support their colleagues and their students to cope with mental health difficulties and access help when required. This study examines whether the intervention has an effect on teacher mental health, teacher absence rates, teacher performance at work, student mental health, student attendance, and student attainment. We also consider if it provides good value for money. Who can participate? Teachers and students who are in year 8 at the beginning of the study and whose parents have not withdrawn consent. What does the study involve? Participating schools are randomly allocated into two groups: the intervention group or the control group. The control group schools continue with usual practice. In the intervention group schools 8% of the staff are trained in Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) and set up a peer support service for colleagues, offering confidential listening, advice and signposting to other services. A further 7-8% of teachers are trained in schools' youth MHFA, to develop their knowledge and skills in supporting students. MHFA is a training course that equips people to recognise the signs and symptoms of distress in others, and offer initial help and support. Before the intervention is delivered, all teachers and students in year 8 complete questionnaires to measure wellbeing and levels of depression/distress, numbers of teachers taking sickness absence, levels of presenteeism among teachers, and quality of teacher-student relationships. We also look at student attendance and attainment for the previous year. We measure these things again one year and two years later to see if there are positive changes and whether these changes are greater within the intervention group compared to the control group. We also conduct interviews and focus groups with teachers, and observations of the training sessions, to explore what happened during the training, how the peer support service is being run, and in what ways participants feel the two aspects of the intervention are useful. Finally, we calculate the cost of the intervention, and weigh this up against any benefits in terms of mental health, staff performance at work, and student attainment and attendance. What are the possible benefits and risks of participating? Schools that take part benefit from receiving anonymised data from their teacher questionnaires regarding wellbeing, depression, presenteeism, and stress and satisfaction at work. Some teachers in the intervention group benefit from free training. If the intervention proves effective, then participants within intervention schools benefit from improved wellbeing and reduced mental health difficulties. There is also a potential benefit to the wider society through improved performance of teachers and students, and reductions of NHS and welfare costs related to long-term mental disorders. There is a small chance that completing the questionnaires may trigger feelings of distress among individual teachers or students. We provide information containing help sources to all participants before completion of questionnaires. It is possible that staff who have received the training may attempt to support colleagues or students with a serious mental illness themselves, instead of recommending professional help. However, this is unlikely as the MHFA training covers identification of a more serious illness, and teaches trainees to consider signposting professional help for anyone they support. Finally there is potential for the peer supporters to feel overburdened with the extra responsibility of supporting their colleagues. This is assessed and recorded during the study. Where is the study run from? University of Bristol and Cardiff University (UK) When is the study starting and how long is it expected to run for? December 2015 to April 2019 Who is funding the study? National Institute for Health Research (UK) Who is the main contact? Dr Judi Kidger [email protected]

Critère d'inclusion

• Mental Health

Liens

• isrctn
• ictrp