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Evaluating new frontiers in service delivery

Youthline Youth Development Researcher David Anstiss took some time out of his schedule to give us an update on the latest research he has been working on.

Anxiety and mood disorders are the two most common disorder groups suffered by young people in New Zealand. Counselling via digital media appears promising in reducing symptomology, though few studies have evaluated digital counselling media against a face-to-face counselling benchmark.

Youthline have recently produced a paper which compares the efficacy of a self-directed, standardised text-message-based intervention, against equivalent youth client data from an established face-to-face counselling service. Data from the pilot of Youthline’s GoMobile text package was compared to youth client data from Youthline’s face-to-face counselling service.

GoMobile participants’ post-intervention scores were significantly lower than their pre-intervention scores for both anxiety and depression. Youth counselling clients’ post-intervention scores were also significantly lower than their pre-intervention scores for both anxiety and depression. The reduction in pre and post-intervention anxiety scores and depression scores were not significantly different between the two interventions. In short, young clients’ symptomology was significantly reduced regardless of whether they received face-to-face counselling or the GoMobile text package.

Findings suggest that providing digital counselling media could open up possibilities for young people to choose counselling avenues they prefer and which offer flexibility, control, and autonomy. Such avenues have the potential to support young people to a similar extent as more traditional face-to-face alternatives.

GoMobile is free and available across New Zealand. Sign up for the next programme today.

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