A scoping review of interventions using occupation to improve mental health or mental wellbeing in adolescent populations.

This is a scoping review, not a test of whether any single intervention works; it maps what has been studied rather than proving effectiveness. The included studies were highly varied in population, occupation type, setting, dose and outcome measures, so the authors could not combine them in a meta-analysis. Quantitative studies were generally low quality, often missing power calculations, confidence intervals, management of missing data, and analysis of baseline similarities between groups. No study reported a cost-effectiveness analysis, and longer-term follow-up was limited. The search was limited to English peer-reviewed articles, and grey literature was not searched, so relevant unpublished work may be missing. Ethical approval was absent in 12 papers, and safeguarding management was not mentioned. Many studies used broad age ranges, and none exclusively targeted 16-17 year-olds, so findings may not apply neatly to a specific adolescent age group.

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The Elizabeth Casson Trust funded the PhD and subsequent research fellow role through which this study was developed. The funder named Oxford Health BRC NIHR.

Do not read this as proof that occupation-based or activity-based interventions improve adolescent mental health. The review mapped many heterogeneous studies, many of which were low quality, and it did not test one intervention against another.