A living scoping review of universal interventions for promoting relational health in childhood, adolescence and young adulthood

Promoting relational health across childhood, adolescence and into young adulthood is notonly important across the formative years of the life course, it also establishes securefoundations for parenthood and raising the next generation. Here we review the globalliterature on universal interventions designed to promote relational health in childhood,adolescence, and young adulthood (4-24 years). This review was conducted in accordancewith the JBI methodology for scoping reviews. Electronic databases (MEDLINE[EBSCOhost], PsycINFO [EBSCOhost], and Embase [EBSCOhost] databases) were searchedusing terms that combined four concepts: (1) outcomes pertaining to child, family andcommunity relational ecology; (2) childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood; (3) RCTstudy design; (4) universal prevention approach. Titles and abstracts were screened using theAI-assisted Living Review System. Full-text screening and data extraction were completedmanually. The search yielded 2,389 studies for title and abstract screening. A total of 161publications were included for full text screening, of which 110 studies reporting 76 universalinterventions (including seven population interventions) were retained. Most (90%)interventions were designed for children and adolescents, and most (97%) targeted family,school and community microsystems including aggressive/disruptive behaviour, parenting,peer relationships, and social competence using mostly classroom/school andparenting/family interventions. The few mesosystem interventions found focused mostly onfamily-school connections. Only eight made changes to exosystems and/or macrosystems, forinstance through community coalitions. Key features of population trials included: (1)multiple components, some beyond the microsystem; (2) involvement of the community, and;(3) integration into existing service systems.