Introduction School-aged children frequently experience psychological distress due to academic pressures, a challenge that is often more severe for those from underserved and minority communities. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of mental health interventions implemented in school and community settings for children aged 5 to 19. It also seeks to compare the outcomes between children from minority and underserved populations and their peers. Methods and analysis This systematic review will follow Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines to identify relevant studies. Major databases will be searched using a structured search strategy developed by the research team. The review will include randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that assess the impact of interventions conducted in school or community settings to prevent psychological distress—specifically depression, anxiety and stress. To minimise bias, two reviewers will independently select studies and extract data at various stages. The quality of included studies will be assessed. A meta-analysis will be conducted to compare intervention outcomes between children from underserved/minority communities and other children. Pooled prevalence rates and subgroup analyses will be used to explore differences in effectiveness. Heterogeneity among studies and publication bias will also be assessed. Meta-analyses of proportions, ORs and relative risks will be conducted using a random-effects model to estimate effect sizes from multivariate analyses. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval was not required, as this study involved secondary analysis of published literature and did not involve human participants. To date, no systematic review has comprehensively compared school-based and community-based interventions in terms of their effectiveness in addressing anxiety, depression and stress among school-aged children. This review aims to fill that gap by providing clinical insights into the comparative effectiveness of various intervention types and settings. PROSPERO review registration CRD42023479389.
Oranye et al. (Mon,) studied this question.