Mental health literacy interventions for female adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Suicide and self-harm are a leading cause of death globally, with females aged 15-24 years being a high-risk group requiring urgent intervention. Promoting mental health literacy is a well-established strategy for early intervention. No review has explored the available interventions promoting mental health literacy for female adolescents and their reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance as a whole remains unknown. This study reviews existing interventions promoting mental health literacy in female adolescents. Searches included original peer-reviewed articles from inception to May 2024 across six databases, identifying twelve studies for review. Five independent meta-analyses were conducted, showing no significant effects immediately post-intervention for mental health literacy, knowledge, stigmatising attitudes, and help-provision. A significant reduction in stigmatising attitudes was found > 6 months post-intervention. Moderation analyses could not be performed due to insufficient data. None of the included studies reported on interventions specifically for female adolescents. This review also evaluated reporting of RE-AIM components, finding limited reporting on reach, adoption, and maintenance. These findings highlight a substantial gap in high-impact and tailored mental health prevention and promotion interventions for female adolescents. Therefore, there is a clear need to understand and target female adolescents' mental health literacy needs to develop and implement more effective interventions.