July 6, 2022

expert reaction to a study of a short online intervention for stress in adolescents

A study, published in Nature, looked at a short online intervention for stress in adolescents.

Dr Emma Ashworth, Chartered Psychologist and Lecturer in Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, said:

“This is an interesting and rigorous study looking at the benefits of a brief intervention to reduce teenagers’ anxiety and influence how they respond to everyday stressors. This is useful as we know that the way that people view potentially stressful events can influence how well they cope with them.

“The intervention is very brief, so could be a relatively easy and low cost way to support a lot of teenagers, and might be useful as an exercise to do it school. However, the briefness also means that this intervention is probably best utilised as a ‘universal’ approach, i.e. for the general population, and will likely not be effective in reducing more severe or long-lasting anxiety that reaches clinical levels. It should therefore not be used to replace any other therapeutic options available. In other words, it is probably one useful tool, when used in conjunction with other approaches, in supporting healthy teenagers dealing with every day stress.

“I also notice that the sample sizes are quite small and the samples could be more diverse, so the results should be interpreted with some caution.”

‘A synergistic mindsets intervention protects adolescents from stress’ by David S. Yeager  et al. was published in Nature at 16:00 UK time on Wednesday 6 July.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04907-7

Declared interests

None received