Why do young people use online forums for mental health and emotional support? Benefits and challenges

ABSTRACT

A qualitative approach was used to explore young people’s experiences of using synchronous and asynchronous online forums to gain insight into the use of online services for mental health. Nineteen young people took part in two online synchronous focus groups facilitated by the online counselling service, KOOTH.com. Inductive thematic analysis indicated that forums do not replace the role of a counsellor, they provide a valuable place for young people to gain additional, lower level support requirements. Individuals suggested the forums were supportive environments where they felt able to interact to share helpful advice and ask questions, making them feel less alone and more connected to others. Issues of concern were around the affordances of the site and technical issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Online forums
• young people
• mental health
• adolescent help seeking
• qualitative research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Julie Prescott is a Reader in Psychology and is the programme lead for the undergraduate Psychology, Psychotherapy and Counselling Programme at the University of Bolton, UK. Julie is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Chartered Psychologist, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and holds APA membership. Her current research area focuses on technology and health/mental health, with a particular interest in young people and online counselling as well as how people gain support and use online technologies for their health and mental health support. She is on the editorial board for Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) Mental Health, a sister journal to the leading health and technology journal, JMIR.

Dr Terry Hanley, CPsychol, AFBPsS, is the Programme Director for the Doctorate in Counselling Psychology at the University of Manchester, UK. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. He was the Editor of Counselling Psychology Review between the years 2009 and 2015. He has a keen interest in training therapists in research skills and is a co-author of Introducing Counselling and Psychotherapy Research (Sage, 2013). He is also co-editor of The SAGE Handbook of Counselling and Psychotherapy (4th edition) (Sage, 2017) and the lead editor of Adolescent Counselling Psychology (Routledge, 2013). He is a Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) registered counselling psychologist and presently works as a therapist with the organisation Freedom from Torture, providing psychological support to a football therapy project. Follow him on twitter @drterryhanley.

Dr Katalin Ujhelyi Gomez completed her PhD at the University of Bolton in February 2019 on the application of positive psychology to dual diagnosis recovery. She contributed to the present study as a Research Assistant during her PhD studies. She now works as a Research Associate at the University of Liverpool investigating maternal alcohol use. It is her aim to conduct further research in the fields of positive psychology, substance misuse, and coexisting disorders and to qualify as a therapist with the intent to pursue a career working with people with coexisting substance misuse and mental health problems.

ORCID

Julie Prescott http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8612-2495

Terry Hanley http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5861-9170

Katalin Ujhelyi http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1396-9588