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REVIEW article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1594658
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Intersection of Psychology, Healthy Behaviors, and its OutcomesView all 85 articles
School-based interventions for resilience in children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials
Provisionally accepted- 1School of Physical Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
- 2College of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
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Objective: This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the overall efficacy of school-based interventions (SBIs) in promoting resilience in children and adolescents and to provide evidence for advancing mental health care for children and adolescents.A search was conducted in seven electronic databases, including PubMed, Embase, EBSCOhost, Scopus, Web of Science, APA PsycINFO, and Google Scholar. The Revised Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomized trials (RoB 2) was used for the quality appraisal. The standardized mean difference (SMD; Cohen's d) combined with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) was used to pool the effect sizes.Results: A total of 35 RCTs involving 14,881 participants were included in the systematic review, 21 of which were selected for inclusion in the meta-analysis. In terms of quality appraisal, the included trials were classified as having low risk, some concerns, or high risk, with proportions of 5.2%, 71.1%, and 23.7%, respectively. The pairwise meta-analyses indicated that SBIs significantly enhanced resilience in children and adolescents compared to the control group (SMD = 0.17, 95% Cl 0.06-0.29, p < 0.01).SBIs have a positive effect on the resilience of children and adolescents. In the context of limited medical resources, SBIs could serve as a promising approach to promote the ability of children and adolescents to adapt to stressors. Given the considerable heterogeneity identified, SBIs should be personalized on the basis of variations in demographic characteristics, intervention implementation, and actual dose-response to improve the overall well-being of children and adolescents and reduce the risk of maladaptive psychological and behavioral responses.
Keywords: school-based interventions, resilience, Children, adolescents, Mental Health
Received: 16 Mar 2025; Accepted: 14 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Cai, Mei, Wang and Luo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Shi Luo, School of Physical Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.