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Social prescribing is now frequently used with adults – but a four-year research project from UCL will see how effective it is with children, while group running is more effective than medication when treating depression.
“There is promising early evidence that social prescribing can help young people. Our study will add to this evidence base, assessing how effective social prescribing is in reducing loneliness and mental health difficulties, enhancing well-being and improving academic attendance and attainment, as well as how cost-effective it is." Dr Daniel Hayes, senior research fellow, UCL
Children are to be prescribed activities such as gardening and fishing as part of a research project aiming to tackle loneliness.
The four-year University College London (UCL) project, which will involve children aged nine to 13, will track how effective social prescribing is in reducing feelings of isolation and mental health difficulties and in improving school attendance. UCL researchers said that, while the NHS increasingly uses social prescribing with adults, children and teenagers might also be able to benefit.
Daisy Fancourt, co-principal investigator and professor of psychobiology and epidemiology at UCL, said: “While GPs are increasingly adopting social prescribing for adults, young people are not yet routinely accessing the service, as they tend not to go to the GP for health and wellbeing support in the way that adults might.
“Our programme will help provide evidence on the potential benefits that social prescribing may have for children too.”
The pilot phase of the project will be carried out with 100 primary and secondary school children with the aim of expanding it to 600 pupils in 30 schools across the UK.
Children who feel lonely will be connected to a link worker or social prescriber for the research, and supported to engage with an activity tailored to the young person’s interests, which could include sport, art, gardening and fishing.
The effects on well-being, loneliness, mental health difficulties, academic attendance and achievement will be measured and compared with those for a control group of children who are signposted to an activity but not given extra support from the social prescriber.
Dr Daniel Hayes, co-principal investigator, and a senior research fellow at UCL, said: “Loneliness has become an increasing problem among adolescents in the UK. This problem is especially acute in cities and among children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“There is promising early evidence that social prescribing can help young people. Our study will add to this evidence base, assessing how effective social prescribing is in reducing loneliness and mental health difficulties, enhancing well-being and improving academic attendance and attainment, as well as how cost-effective it is.
“In our project, a link worker will meet the young person for six to eight sessions, learning what matters most to them, what their gifts and strengths are, in order to provide tailored support, linking them with local organisations and activities that will be of interest to them.”
Research evidence for the benefits of non-pharmacological interventions to tackle mental health problems continues to mount. A new piece of research has found that group running therapy is as effective in tackling depression as antidepressants, while also benefiting participants’ physical health.
The study, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, ran for 16 weeks. Participants were included in the study if they were between the ages of 18 and 70 years and had a current diagnosis of major depressive disorder or an anxiety disorder such as panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, or social phobia. Of the 141 participants, 45 were given an SSRI antidepressant, while 96 undertook 45 minutes of supervised outdoor running two-to-three times a week.
Researchers found that, while the mental health outcomes for the two interventions were comparable, running therapy had a significantly better impact on physical health outcomes than antidepressants. Physical health characteristics such as body weight, waist circumference, heart rate, variability in heart rate and blood pressure differed significantly between the two interventions. The group undergoing running therapy showed more improvements in all these factors than the one being treated with antidepressants.
The differences in outcomes were the same when the participants were randomised or when they chose the intervention according to their preference. However, there was a big difference in adherence to the treatments: 82% of the antidepressant group kept to the treatment, while only 52% of the running group stuck with it.
FCC Insight
The past few years have seen a growing interest in non-pharmacological treatments for a broad range of mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression and loneliness. Although evidence suggests that social prescribing – which involves providing people with the opportunity to engage in activities such as gardening or dancing – is effective in improving mental health, it has, for the most part, been directed at adults. Given the large increase in children experiencing mental health problems since the pandemic, we are pleased to see UCL investigate whether children’s mental health and wellbeing can also be boosted by social prescribing. At the same time, a new study has shown that running can be as effective as antidepressants in treating depression, and, perhaps not surprisingly, more effective in improving physical health. As the researchers point out, however, the participants were less likely to adhere to the running regime than the antidepressant regime. The research challenge now is to look at how that adherence can be improved, perhaps by investigating different types of exercise.