Clinical mental health interventions with adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic: A scoping review

Abstract

Introduction/objective: Although social distancing measures affect adults, they have caused greater negative impacts in adolescents, especially for not being able to interact with peers at school. The study aimed to investigate the scientific production regarding psychosocial clinical mental health interventions with adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: The search was carried out in the Embase, PsycNET, Pubmed, Scopus, and Scielo databases, covering the period from 2020 to 2023. Sixteen articles that met the pre-established inclusion criteria were analysed. Results: Regarding the psychological risk factors that the interventions sought to reduce, it was found that depression 50% (n = 8) and anxiety 43.7% (n = 7) were the most frequently selected outcomes in the studies. The interventions also sought to improve protective psychological factors (n = 9) such as resilience, coping, quality of life, well-being and emotional intelligence. Conclusions: It was possible to verify that several therapeutic methods can promote the mental health of adolescents in periods of social isolation, the main one according to the evidence, being mindfulness.