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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Children and Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1431996

A Mixed-methods Systematic Review of Mental Health Activities among Urban Left-Behind Children (ULBC) in Mainland China

Provisionally accepted
Siyu Long Siyu Long 1*Zainal Bin Madon Zainal Bin Madon 2Noris Mohd Norowi Noris Mohd Norowi 3Mei Foong Ang Mei Foong Ang 2
  • 1 Department of Music, Faculty of Human Ecology, Putra Malaysia University, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 2 Faculty of Human Ecology, Putra Malaysia University, Serdang, Malaysia
  • 3 Putra Malaysia University, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The mental health of left-behind children (LBC) has garnered attention from Chinese scholars in recent years. Although several interventions have been implemented to address these children's mental health in urban areas, a gap remains in understanding the types of interventions, their effectiveness, and the factors that act as barriers or facilitators during the implementation process. Researchers conducted a comprehensive search of databases in both English and Chinese, covering the years 2005 to 2023. The initial search took place in January 2024 and was updated in March 2024. This study includes all studies results available up to December 31, 2023. The protocol has been registered on PROSPERO (CRD42023384078) and includes 14 studies in the review. The activity categories included group psychological activities, individual family activities and multiple formats services. Three barriers to implementation emerged: social workers, activities and parents. The facilitators were parents and activity design. This review revealed that some studies suffered from poor data collection methods and data quality. Studies on services for mental health in ULBC requires methodologically robust study designs for broader dissemination and rigorous evaluation.

    Keywords: Urban left-behind children, Mental health activities, barriers, Facilitators, Mainland China

    Received: 15 May 2024; Accepted: 30 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Long, Bin Madon, Mohd Norowi and Ang. 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: Siyu Long, Department of Music, Faculty of Human Ecology, Putra Malaysia University, Serdang, 43400, Selangor, Malaysia

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