Abstract

Many young people with mental disorders are not identified until some years after the first onset of symptoms and then frequently do not receive professional intervention. One promising strategy to better identify these young people is mental health screening in schools. Despite a growing literature on the benefits of school-based screening, it remains a relatively uncommon practice and little is known about the practices of those schools that do screen. Moreover, the barriers that prevent schools from screening are not well understood. This study reports on the perceptions of school psychologists about universal mental health screening in schools regarding the prevalence of screening; the practices within schools that do screen; and the perceived barriers to implementing screening. Results indicated that screening remains uncommon, with only 14.8% of school psychologists working in schools that screened in the previous 12 months. The most significant barriers to screening related to being adequately resourced to implement programs, and particularly concerns about how to follow-up students identified as being at-risk. Despite this, school psychologists endorse the potential benefit of screening and report being likely to run screening programs if perceived barriers could be reduced.

Impact and Implications statement

• Universal mental health screening in schools remains uncommon.

• The main perceived barriers relate to adequate resources – partly in terms of available time - and to management of at-risk students.

• Despite these barriers, school psychologists see school-based screening as useful for student wellbeing.

摘要

许多患有精神障碍的年轻人直到症状首次出现几年后才被发现，然后经常没有接受专业干预。更好地识别这些年轻人的一个有希望的策略是在学校进行心理健康检查。尽管关于基于学校筛查的好处的文献越来越多，但它仍然是一种相对不常见的做法，而且对那些进行筛查的学校的做法知之甚少。此外，阻碍学校进行筛查的障碍还不是很清楚。本研究报告了学校心理学家对学校普遍心理健康筛查的看法。学校内进行筛查的做法；以及实施筛查的感知障碍。结果表明，筛查仍然不常见，只有 14 人。8% 的学校心理学家在过去 12 个月进行过筛查的学校工作。筛查的最大障碍与是否有足够的资源来实施计划有关，尤其是对如何跟进被确定为有风险的学生的担忧。尽管如此，学校心理学家认可筛查的潜在好处，并报告说，如果可以减少感知障碍，他们可能会开展筛查项目。

影响和影响声明

• 在学校进行普遍的心理健康筛查仍然不常见。

• 主要感知障碍与充足的资源（部分是可用时间）和高危学生的管理有关。

• 尽管存在这些障碍，但学校心理学家认为基于学校的筛查对学生的福祉很有用。