Psychiatric Outreach Nurses Supporting Adolescent Mental Health

The study evaluates the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the outreach work of psychiatric registered nurses (RN) and the experiences of professionals in the field. The service is provided in school environment. First, the study will assess the effectiveness of brief interventions provided by psychiatric outreach nurses on the perceived mental health and quality of life of adolescents (12-16 year old pupils) and their use of social and health services, compared to the support/treatment provided by conventional student welfare services at 6 and 12 months follow-up. The intervention is an outreach service provided by psychiatric nurses. In the intervention, the psychiatric registered nurse will implement interventions such as usual care, discussion, psychoeducation, substance abuse skills and various methods (such as interpersonal psychotherapy = IPT-N and Cool Kids) and motivational interviewing. Secondly, an economic evaluation of the service will be carried out at 6 and 12 months follow-up. The economic evaluation will be carried out from the perspective of the Wellbeing Services County, including the costs of implementing the intervention model and its effects on adolescents' use of student welfare services as well as other social and health services. Primarily, the economic evaluation will use quality-weighted life years as a measure of effectiveness. Also analysis using depression, anxiety and substance use measures will be conducted. Thirdly, the study will explore the experiences of psychiatric nurses implementing the service as well as the experiences of their collaborators in schools (public health nurses, school social workers, psychologists, doctors and teachers) about the service and its implementation.