Addressing an unrecognised public health problem in Vietnam: a clustered randomised controlled trial of the culturally adapted Resourceful Adolescent Program (RAP-V) to improve adolescent mental health
Addressing an unrecognised public health problem in Vietnam: a clustered randomised controlled trial of the culturally adapted Resourceful Adolescent Program (RAP-V) to improve adolescent mental health
Thach Tran; Huong Nguyen; Ian Shochet; Nga Nguyen; Nga La; Astrid Wurfl; Jayne Orr; Hau Nguyen; Ruby Stocker; Jane Fisher.
Dr Thach Tran and Professor Jane Fisher, leading a multidisciplinary team from Monash, Queensland University of Technology and Hanoi University of Public Health, conducted a school-based, two-arm, parallel, controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of the Resourceful Adolescent Program (RAP). The RAP was developed in Australia aiming to build psychological resilience and enhance the coping resources among adolescents, to prevent depression and promote positive mental health. The trial involved the recruitment of 1,084 students from eight schools located in urban and rural areas of Hanoi. Half of the schools received the intervention in the form of six weekly 90-minute sessions conducted with whole-class groups. Data was collected at three timepoints (at recruitment, and 2 weeks, and 6 months post intervention).
The data from this study demonstrates that an adapted version of the RAP program was effective in reducing depressive symptoms and promoting psychological wellbeing among adolescents at the post-intervention stage. In Vietnam and other low- and middle-income countries, mental health problems during adolescence are increasingly recognised. This study provides robust evidence on the effectiveness of a program that has significant potential to be integrated into the existing school curriculum, with the aim of reducing the prevalence of mental health problems and promoting positive mental health among adolescents in Vietnam. Scaling up this program in every high school in Vietnam could prevent up to 3,000 cases of depressive disorders among seven million high school adolescents (as a 5% reduction as observed in this study).
The findings of this study have been published in six international peer-reviewed papers and nine Vietnamese peer-reviewed papers. Two PhD candidates and five master's students have been supervised by the research team using data from this study.
Project papers
Tran TD, Nguyen H, Shochet I, Nguyen N, La N, Wurfl A, Orr J, Nguyen H, Stocker R, Fisher J. School-based universal mental health promotion intervention for adolescents in Vietnam: Two-arm, parallel, controlled trial. Global Mental Health (Cambridge Prisms). 2023 Oct 23;10:e69. doi: 10.1017/gmh.2023.66.
Tran TD, Nguyen H, Shochet I, Nguyen N, La N, Wurfl A, Orr J, Nguyen H, Stocker R, Fisher J. Psychometric properties of the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale Revised – Vietnamese Version (CESDR-V) among adolescents. Psychiatry Research Communications. 2024;4(2):100165. doi: 10.1016/j.psycom.2024.100165.
Tran T, Nguyen H, Shochet I, Nguyen N, La N, Wurfl A, Orr J, Nguyen H, Stocker R, Fisher J. Coping self-efficacy and thoughts of self-harm among adolescents in Vietnam: A longitudinal study. Archives of Suicide Research. 2023 Oct 14:1-13. doi: 10.1080/13811118.2023.2265444.
Shochet I, Orr J, Cockshaw W, Tran T, La N, Nguyen H, Nguyen N, Wurfl A, Nguyen H, Stocker R, Fisher J. Validation of the Behavioral Anger Response Questionnaire for Children (BARQ-C) in a large community sample of Vietnamese middle adolescents in Hanoi. BMC Psychology. 2022 Aug 12;10(1):199. doi: 10.1186/s40359-022-00907-4.
La NL, Shochet I, Tran T, Fisher J, Wurfl A, Nguyen N, Orr J, Stocker R, Nguyen H. Adaptation of a school-based mental health program for adolescents in Vietnam. PLoS One. 2022 Aug 4;17(8):e0271959. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0271959.
Tran T, La N, Nguyen H, Shochet I, Nguyen N, Wurfl A, Orr J, Nguyen H, Stocker R, Fisher J. Validation of the coping self-efficacy scale: Vietnamese version for adolescents. BMC Psychology. 2022 Mar 9;10(1):59. doi: 10.1186/s40359-022-00770-3.
Thanh HK, Ha DT, Nga NT, Tran T, Fisher J, Shochet I, Wurfl A, Orr J, Stocker R, Huong NT. Association between school connectedness and mental health among female students grade 10th: A Path analysis. Vietnam Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2021;31(9), 312–320. doi: 10.51403/0868-2836/2021/469.
Thanh HK, Ha DT, Nga NT, Tran TD, Fisher J, Shochet I, Wurfl A, Orr J, Stocker R, Huong NT. School connectedness and mental health among students grade 10th: Results from a survey of 8 high schools in Hanoi in 2020. Vietnam Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2021;31(7), 72–81. doi: 10.51403/0868-2836/2021/401.
Tran T, Nguyen HT, Shochet I, Wurfl A, Orr J, Nguyen N, La N, Nguyen H, Stocker R, Nguyen T, Le M, Fisher J. School-based, two-arm, parallel, controlled trial of a culturally adapted resilience intervention to improve adolescent mental health in Vietnam: study protocol. BMJ Open. 2020 Oct 16;10(10):e039343. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-039343.