Open Access Enhancing the Emotional and Social Skills of the Youth to Promote their Wellbeing and Positive Development: A Systematic Review of Universal School-based Randomized Controlled Trials

Abstract: Background: The acquisition of social and emotional skills is associated with positive youth development, character education, healthy lifestyle behaviours, reduction in depression and anxiety, conduct disorders, violence, bully-ing, conflict, and anger. School-based interventions aimed to enhance these skills go beyond a problem-focused approach to embrace a more positive view of health; they could also improve the youth’s wellbeing. Aim: To describe the main fea-tures and to establish the effectiveness of universal school-based RCTs for children and the youth, aimed to promote their psychosocial wellbeing, positive development, healthy lifestyle behaviours and/or academic performance by improving their emotional and social skills. Methods: Systematic review by searching for relevant papers in PubMed/Medline with the following key words: “mental health ” OR “wellbeing ” OR “health promotion ” OR “emotional learning ” OR “social learning ” OR “emotional and social learning ” OR “positive youth development ” OR “life skills ” OR “life skills training” AND “school”. Interval was set from January 2000 to April 2014. Results: 1,984 papers were identified through the search. Out of them 22 RCTs were included. While most interventions were characterized by a whole-school approach and SAFE practices, few studies only used standardized measures to assess outcomes, or had collected follow-up data af-ter 6 months. The results of all these trials were examined and discussed. Conclusion: Universal school-based RCTs t