Reasons for non-participation of children and adolescents in a large-scale school-based mental health project

Background Non-participation in mental health studies is an under-explored but very important topic. Investigating reasons for non-participation holds promise for the planning of future study designs and recruitment strategies. This study aimed at investigating reasons for children and adolescents (C&A) not participating in a school-based mental health research project. Methods Data collection took place within the school-based recruitment of a large-scale multi-site project (“ProHEAD—Promoting Help-seeking using E-technology for Adolescents”) in Germany. Participants were N = 534 C&A aged ≥ 12 years attending secondary schools. The present cross-sectional study analyzed anonymous survey data of C&A who themselves or whose parents, respectively, did not provide written consent to participate in the mental health research project. The questionnaire consisted of 14 items covering potential reasons for non-participation, and four free text fields. Besides descriptive statistics, free text field answers were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Results Students indicated an average of M = 2.94 ( SD = 1.75) reasons for their non-participation in the project. In the descriptive analysis of indicated items, the three most frequently reported reasons for non-participation included students reporting to not be concerned by the topic “mental health” ( n = 290, 54.3%), not having returned the consent form to the teacher ( n = 175, 32.8%), and not having time for participation ( n = 149, 27.9%). In the qualitative content analysis, the most frequently assigned categories were organizational reasons ( n = 216, 57.1%), general disinterest in study participation ( n = 139, 36.8%), and personal attitudes toward the topic “mental health” ( n = 84, 22.2%), such as not being concerned with the topic “mental health” ( n = 23, 6.1%) or being too concerned with the topic “mental health” ( n = 16, 4.2%). Conclusion The study provides unique insights into reasons for C&A and their caregivers not ...