Mental Health

Mental health interventions encompass a broad-spectrum including promotion, prevention, early intervention, treatment, recovery, and maintenance. However, the specific roles of various social settings and tools—such as schools, social services, and digital platforms—remain inadequately understood or integrated. This systematic review aimed to establish evidence-based insights into the roles of these settings and tools in the early detection and intervention of adolescent mental health disorders in the United Kingdom (UK). A comprehensive search of six electronic databases was conducted between the 8th and 19th of April 2025, supported by policy documents and supplemented by reference list screening of included and review articles. The search strategy was guided by the PIOS framework. Out of 9,325 citations screened, 12 studies met the inclusion criteria. These studies, published between 2016 and 2023, focused on adolescents aged 8 to 25 years and addressed various disorders, including social anxiety disorder. There is need for integration and multidisciplinary collaboration to increase the extent and effectiveness of mental health interventions. Albeit digital tools or online delivery approach offers the opportunity to overcome many of the limitations associated with school-based tools. However, consistent data collection across the social service, health and education settings, an all-encompassing information can be generated to support the understanding of individuals’ exposure to risk factors for mental health problems. Keywords: Mental Health, Early Detection, Intervention, Schools, Social Services, Digital Technologies

One of the global health challenges today is the prevalence of mental illness. A mental disorder or mental illness (MI) is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbances in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behaviour that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning. Newspapers, as part of the mass media, are saddled with the responsibility of covering mental ill-health. This study sought to explore the newspaper coverage of mental health issues in Nigeria. The content analysis technique was used to analyse four national newspapers: Daily Sun, The Guardian, The Nation, and Vanguard for five years. Code sheet was used as an instrument of data collection and agenda-setting theory and social responsibility theory were used to explain the study. Findings from the research revealed that the frequency coverage on mental illness is 321 with insanity as the most covered mental illness issue by the newspapers. The prominence given to the coverage of mental illness was low. More so, news was found to be the story genre that received the most attention. In terms of the direction of coverage, findings showed that the newspapers covered mental illness positively. The study also revealed that the selected newspapers did not give depth to stories on mental illness. Based on the findings, it is recommended among other things that Newspapers should endeavour to place essence in the interpretation and analysis of news reports on mental health issues.