The evaluation of effectiveness of school-based mental health care programs : a meta-analysis of research

The psychological support for students as school-based become an important field of education as supporting general educational performance. There were studies related to effectiveness of school-based mental health care programs and provided consistent or controversial results under various conditions. Therefore, to examine the effectiveness of school-based mental health care program delivered by teachers on internalizing and externalizing outcomes, current study conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis. Based on the electronic databases and major journals, 121 effect sizes from 24 studies are coded as final sample and four moderators are coded including type of intervention, group size, duration of intervention, and type of measurements. For both internalizing- and externalizing outcomes, publication bias were assessed. The results showed that pooled effect size for internalizing outcomes is statistically significant indicating the school-based program have an effect on reducing internalizing problems but pooled effect size for externalizing outcomes is not significant. Moderator analysis with meta-ANOVA revealed that, school-based mental health care program have more effective when the study used combination of behavioral-cognitive approach and social-skill approach intervention, larger group size (= class room), short or middle duration of intervention, and survey measurement for internalizing outcomes. On the other hand, for externalizing outcomes, combination approach intervention had more effective than using a single approach. According to the publication bias, results support there is lack of publication bias.Educational Psycholog