Understanding How Youth Search for Mental Health Information Online: A Qualitative Descriptive Study

Abstract

The objective of this study was to understand how youth search for mental health information online. Youth partners were engaged at the onset of the project and provided input throughout on the design, conduct and analysis. Individual, semi-structured interviews with Canadian youth with experience searching for mental health information online were conducted. Data collection and reflexive thematic analysis proceeded concurrently. Fourteen youth were interviewed. Four main themes related to how youth search online emerged: mind-set shapes the search process; external factors shape the search process; key attributes of helpful information; and cues affecting trustworthiness of online information. Findings can inform the development of youth-friendly online mental health information that is perceived as helpful and trustworthy by youth. Ensuring youth have access to quality online mental health information, accessible to how they search for it, is critical to the mental health and development of youth.

Acknowledgments

MP was supported by a graduate studentship from the Alberta SPOR SUPPORT Unit and the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute through a CIHR Foundation Grant (FDN-148411) held by Dr. Shannon Scott and Dr. Lisa Hartling. The funding agency played no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, or writing of the report. Dr. Hartling is supported by a Canada Research Chair in Knowledge Synthesis and Translation. Dr. Scott is supported by a Canada Research Chair in Knowledge Translation in Child Health. Dr. Hartling and Dr. Scott are Distinguished Researchers with the Stollery Science Lab supported by the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data are available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2024.2313990

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.