Initial findings have been published in a proof-of-concept paper in the journal PLOS One and come from the first phase of the BrainWaves study, led by the University of Oxford in partnership with The Day News and Media and Swansea University.
Adolescent mental health and wellbeing is of growing concern globally, with an estimated one in four young people having a mental health condition in England. The sample data supports existing evidence that certain lifestyle factors are associated with mental health and wellbeing.
The study was carried out with 15,444 students aged 16-19 from 36 schools and sixth form colleges in England and Scotland. 59% were female and 41% were male. It shows:
- Higher levels of anxiety and depression were found in females than males (8.3% and 6.8% respectively for females, versus 5.1% and 5.2% for males).
- Females had higher levels of social media use (34.4% of females spent more than four hours on social media versus 28.4% of males), while males were more likely to game (17.3% of males and 4.3% of females spent more than four hours a day gaming).
- Females were more likely to report having insufficient sleep, and vape, while males were more likely to take drugs, have sufficient sleep and engage in high levels of exercise.
- Sleep and exercise were strong predictors of general wellbeing and lower levels of anxiety and depression.
- Alcohol consumption, vaping and smoking were negatively associated with wellbeing and correlated with higher levels of anxiety and depression.
Senior author Professor John Gallacher, Co-Director of BrainWaves, said:
Our findings show how complex adolescent development is. Much more work is required to obtain a better understanding of how various lifestyle factors interact with mental health and wellbeing. This requires population-level longitudinal data that maps the trajectory of mental health and wellbeing and their causes over time, which is what we want to do with BrainWaves.”
BrainWaves aims to monitor the mental health and wellbeing of more than 50,000 adolescents. The data collected will be available on a comprehensive BrainWaves platform providing the wider scientific community with the opportunity to develop their own research.
Professor Gallacher added: “This proof-of-concept paper demonstrates that data can be collected at pace and scale and made freely available to scientists. In this way, BrainWaves can provide a global resource for adolescent wellbeing and mental health research.
“Our vision is to inform and empower young people to make good life choices, and provide evidence-based support for schools to improve adolescent mental health and wellbeing, and ultimately reduce the number of young people requiring specialist support. We are so grateful to the schools and young people who have so generously given their time to this project.”