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

Mental Disorders Clinical Trial

Official title:

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

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT01860313
• Other study ID #: 573974/2008-0
• Status: Completed
• Phase: Phase 0
• First received: May 7, 2013
• Last updated: May 19, 2013
• Start date: January 2010
• Est. completion date: July 2012

Study information

• Verified date: May 2013
• Source: University of Sao Paulo
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Health authority: Brazil: National Committee of Ethics in Research
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

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.

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.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 213
• Est. completion date: July 2012
• Est. primary completion date: December 2011
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: Both
• Age group: N/A and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Primary Public Schools of Campos do Jordão City

• Internet Access

Exclusion Criteria:

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Endpoint Classification: Efficacy Study, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Open Label, Primary Purpose: Prevention

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Mental Disorders
• Psychotic Disorders

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Web-based interactive education
An educational program for training teachers and educators to better recognize mental health problems in adolescents and children
• 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.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
n/a

Sponsors (3)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of Sao Paulo	Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	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)	No