Assessing the Feasibility of a Peer Education Project to Improve Mental Health Literacy in Adolescents in the UK.

Many mental health problems begin in adolescence and occur on a spectrum of severity: early recognition and intervention is important. This study is a quantitative feasibility study of the Mental Health Foundation's Peer Education Project (PEP). Attrition, psychometric properties of questionnaires, indications of improvement on a range of outcomes, and sample size required for a powered trial of effectiveness were assessed. 203 students completed the survey both pre and post-intervention. It was found that existing previously-validated measures had good psychometric properties, with two new questionnaires demonstrating reasonable reliability (self-help confidence alpha = 0.78, mental health knowledge alpha = 0.59). There were indications of improvement in help-seeking intentions, the number of sources likely to seek help from, and mental health knowledge from pre- to post-intervention. A future trial of PEP with a sample of approximately 36 schools, researcher-led data collections, and help-seeking intentions or sources as a primary outcome appears to be feasible.