Peer-reviewed article
Brief internet intervention for grieving children and adolescents: co-design and trial protocol.
Sarah J Egan, Elizabeth Bills, Amy O'Brien, Danyelle Greene, Sian B Pauley-Gadd et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This paper describes the co-design and trial protocol for a brief internet-based intervention to help grieving children and adolescents aged 6-18 years. Young people involved in the design emphasized the need for shorter treatments to improve uptake. The planned randomized controlled trial will compare a single-session online program against a waitlist control, measuring anxiety, depression, wellbeing, and grief symptoms. The study aims to improve access to mental health support for grieving youth.
Key points
- Youth co-designers identified lack of time as the main barrier to uptake of grief interventions, requesting shorter treatments
- The intervention is a brief single-session online programme rather than a longer multi-session course
- Primary outcome is anxiety symptoms; secondary outcomes include well-being, depression, posttraumatic stress, and prolonged grief
- Study will assess feasibility through recruitment rates, attrition, and qualitative responses from participants
- Planned sample is children and adolescents aged 6-18 years randomized to intervention or waitlist control
Limitations
This is a protocol paper describing a planned trial, not results from a completed study. The document does not report actual outcomes, effectiveness data, or findings from the intervention delivery.
Abstract
Background: Internet interventions may improve access to help for grieving young people. In feedback from recent trials of internet interventions for grief, youth emphasised treatments should be shorter to address lack of time, which was the main barrier to uptake.Objective: The aim was to co-design a new brief internet intervention for grieving children and adolescents, and to outline a protocol for a pilot feasibility randomised controlled trial.Method: Nine children and adolescents (mean age = 15.22, 77.7% female, 33.3% male) co-designed the brief internet intervention.Results: A randomised controlled trial is planned where six- to 18-year-olds will be randomly allocated to the intervention or waitlist control. The intervention will consist of a brief single-session online programme. Outcomes will be assessed at pre, post-treatment and one-month follow-up. The primary outcome is symptoms of anxiety; secondary outcomes are well-being, symptoms of depression, posttraumatic stress, and prolonged grief. Feasibility and acceptability will be assessed through recruitment rates, attrition and qualitative responses.Conclusions: Improving access to treatments for grief is important to address.Trial registration: ISRCTN.org identifier: ISRCTN21132251.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Brief single-session internet-based programme for grief, co-designed with young people
- Population
- Children and adolescents aged 6-18 years experiencing grief
Key finding
Co-design process involved 9 young people (mean age 15.22 years, 77.7% female)