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Mechanisms of change for interventions aimed at improving the wellbeing, mental health and resilience of children and adolescents affected by war and armed conflict: a systematic review of reviews

Overview of attention for article published in Conflict and Health, May 2018
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (88th percentile)
  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (64th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
1 news outlet
blogs
1 blog
twitter
7 X users

Citations

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51 Dimensions

Readers on

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210 Mendeley
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Title
Mechanisms of change for interventions aimed at improving the wellbeing, mental health and resilience of children and adolescents affected by war and armed conflict: a systematic review of reviews
Published in
Conflict and Health, May 2018
DOI 10.1186/s13031-018-0153-1
Pubmed ID
Authors

Tania Josiane Bosqui, Bassam Marshoud

Abstract

Despite increasing research and clinical interest in delivering psychosocial interventions for children affected by war, little research has been conducted on the underlying mechanisms of change associated with these interventions. This review aimed to identify these processes in order to inform existing interventions and highlight research gaps. A systematic review of reviews was conducted drawing from academic databases (PubMed, PILOTS, Cochrane Library for Systematic Reviews) and field resources (e.g. Médecins Sans Frontières and the Psychosocial Centre of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies), with extracted data analysed using Thematic Content Analysis. Thirteen reviews of psychosocial or psychological interventions for children and adolescents (< 25 years old) affected by war, armed conflict or political violence were identified, covering over 30 countries worldwide. Qualitative analysis identified 16 mechanisms of change, one of which was an adverse mechanism. Themes included protection from harm, play, community and family capacity building, strengthening relationships with caregivers, improved emotional regulation, therapeutic rapport, trauma processing, and cognitive restructuring; with the adverse mechanism relating to the pathologising of normal reactions. However, only 4 mechanisms were supported by strong empirical evidence, with only moderate or poor quality evidence supporting the other mechanisms. The poor quality of supporting evidence limits what can be inferred from this review's findings, but serves to highlight clinically informed mechanisms of change for existing and widely used non-specialist interventions in the field, which urgently need rigorous scientific testing to inform their continued practice.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 7 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 210 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 210 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 25 12%
Researcher 20 10%
Student > Ph. D. Student 20 10%
Student > Doctoral Student 10 5%
Student > Bachelor 10 5%
Other 41 20%
Unknown 84 40%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 41 20%
Medicine and Dentistry 18 9%
Social Sciences 14 7%
Nursing and Health Professions 13 6%
Unspecified 4 2%
Other 29 14%
Unknown 91 43%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 20. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 02 January 2024.
All research outputs
#1,799,924
of 25,085,910 outputs
Outputs from Conflict and Health
#144
of 639 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#37,582
of 333,538 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Conflict and Health
#6
of 14 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,085,910 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 92nd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 639 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 17.6. This one has done well, scoring higher than 77% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 333,538 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 14 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 64% of its contemporaries.