Effectiveness of school-based program to preventing mental disorders in school age children: review article

Mental health disorders are prevalent in children in all societies. The onset of most mental disorders is in youth (12–24 years of age), but most of the time they are first detected later in life. Poor mental health is strongly related to other health and development concerns so it is common to show high grade of stress, substance use, violence, and depression. The effectiveness of some interventions has been strongly established, although more researches are needed to improve the range of affordable and feasible interventions. The shortage of educational and fiscal policies and the fairly low attention to this subject is the main challenge addressing mental-health needs. Therefore, universal or early intervention programs are needed to develop protective factors by increasing competence or skills, to reduce existing negative behaviors. Moreover child discipline problems can be reduced by school multicomponent intervention strategies and as a result promotion in student’s achievement becomes evident.