Table 31GRADE Summary of Findings for Symptoms of Anxiety

Outcome, follow-up, no. participants (trials) Findings Certainty of the evidence (GRADE) What happens?
Anxiety

Post-booster: 97 (1 RCT 39 )

Longest follow-up: 55 (1 RCT 40 )

One RCT39,40 with high risk of bias (unclear direction) reported on participants’ self-reported anxiety symptoms. The trial39 compared HOP-C with no peer support among university students with self-identified mental health concerns. The participants (n =117) were mostly female (82.2%), White (68.6%) and heterosexual (66.9%), and reported depressive symptoms (85.5%).

Anxiety symptoms were assessed using Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-Item scale62,63 (score range 0 to 21), with higher scores indicating increased severity of symptoms.63

At post-booster and at the 2-month follow-up, there were no difference in self-reported improvement in anxiety symptoms between HOP-C and waitlist groups (p values 0.213 and 0.252 respectively).

 Very low

due to serious concerns for risk of bias, concerns for inconsistency, serious concerns for indirectness and imprecision.a

There may be little to no difference in the effect of HOP-C vs. TAU on self-reported anxiety symptoms post-booster, but the evidence is very uncertain.

There may be little to no difference in the effect of HOP-C vs. waitlist control on self-reported anxiety symptoms at follow-up, but the evidence is very uncertain.

HOP= Honest, Open, Proud; HOP-C = Honest, Open, Proud–College; RCT = randomized controlled trial; TAU = treatment as usual

a

At post-intervention and at follow-up: rated down once for risk of bias due to serious concerns about the potential for bias arising from missing outcome data and bias in measurement of the outcomes (participant reported subjective outcomes); rated down once due to serious concerns for inconsistency because of limited of evidence of consistency as only 1 trial was available that reported on the outcome at all time points; rated down once due to serious concerns for indirectness because only 1 program (HOP/HOP-C) was identified and the population seemed relatively homogenous, thereby lowering the generalizability of findings to peer support programs in general; rated down once due to serious concerns about imprecision because of the relatively lower sample size in each comparison; publication bias was not detected.

From: Peer Support Programs for Youth Mental Health

Cover of Peer Support Programs for Youth Mental Health
Peer Support Programs for Youth Mental Health: Health Technology Assessment [Internet].
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