P3.029: The Well-Being Action Plan: Utilizing Youth Voice to Improve a New Tool for Supporting Mental Health in Pediatric Care

Purpose/Objectives: Participatory intervention design processes that involve youth can respect patient autonomy, facilitate the development of patient-centered, pragmatic solutions, and create the opportunity for the quality improvement project itself to become a therapeutic and educational experience. Investigators utilized youth input to improve the Well-Being Action Plan (WBAP), a conversation guide for providing anticipatory guidance regarding emotional well-being for youth in primary care settings. Investigators sought youth input on the utility and the relevance of the content on the WBAP via a survey. Investigators hypothesized that youth would complete the survey to a pre-defined satisfactory level and that youth feedback would provide meaningful data to improve the WBAP.

Design/Methods: Youth input was facilitated by an in-person survey given during school health classes. The project was determined to be IRB-exempt. Access to health classes was facilitated via relationships with school-based health centers and community partnerships. Over five months in 2024, the WBAP and the survey were presented to students in six different public schools, three in Vermont and three in the District of Columbia. Qualitative results were compiled and coded according to the theme of the response. Qualitative and quantitative results were then analyzed using SPSS.

Results: Two hundred and thirty-four middle and high school students completed the survey. Students surveyed were from school districts with a high percentage of students classified as “at risk.” Seventy-three percent of students surveyed gave responses that met the criteria for a high level of survey completion. Eighty-two percent of students felt the WBAP was appropriate for their age group. Three out of four students surveyed affirmed that the WBAP helped them to identify their coping skills. Sixty-seven percent of students surveyed indicated that the WBAP would make it easier to communicate their needs to their healthcare provider. When youth aged 11-13 were excluded, 77% of students aged 14-18 indicated that the WBAP would make it easier to communicate their needs to their healthcare provider. Two thirds of students surveyed felt it would be helpful to have the WBAP on their phone, with 48% citing increased availability or anticipated need to refer to the WBAP in the future as justification.

Conclusion/Discussion: The WBAP survey demonstrated that youth in school health classes respond to well-tailored outreach efforts that include them in medical intervention design. The youth who were sampled completed the survey to a highly satisfactory level, provided data to meaningfully improve the relevance of the WBAP, and many commented that participation itself was therapeutic. An updated version of the WBAP will incorporate youth recommendations. Future plans include developing a WBAP phone app and additional language versions of the WBAP. The WBAP and an implementation guide are currently available online via the Vermont Child Health Improvement Program: https://www.med.uvm.edu/vchip/topics/adolescent_health.