Today, high school students worldwide face unprecedented levels of anxiety as they tour academic pressures, issues with social identity and future career decisions. In Japan, researchers have found that depressive symptoms affect a large part of high school students, with many degrees above clinical cuts for depression. These symptoms not only increase the risk of developing significant depressive disorders, but also adversely affect students’ educational results, future employment prospects and financial prosperity throughout their lives.
Recognizing this vulnerability, numerous school programs have been developed and implemented, with the aim of preventing and alleviating depressive symptoms in students. These interventions often aim at the cognitive and behavioral risk factors associated with depression. However, many of these universal programs have shown limited long -term effectiveness, especially in high school environments. The skills that have learned in these programs often fail to generalize in the wider school environment and the content of the program may not always resonate with the specific challenges facing students. In addition, existing research focused mainly on younger teenagers, leaving a gap in understanding the effective interventions for older high school students.
In this scene, a research team led by Professor Akiko Ogata from the University of Hiroshima, Japan, developed and examined an innovative intervention specifically designed for high school students. Their study, which was available on the Internet on May 17, 2025, will be published in Volume 174 of the magazine Review of children and youth services On July 1, 2025, he examined the effectiveness of the domination of interpersonal relationships and emotional skills (Miraes), among 120 students who participated in part -time courses in Japanese Gymnasium. The project was implemented by Dr. Kohei Kambara from Doshisha University and co-author by Dr. Yugo Kira from Kurume University, as well as by Mr. Misuzu Matsumoto and Dr. Suzuka Hako from the University of Hiroshima.
The Miraes program involved previous deficiencies through several basic innovations. Unlike the typical short -term interventions that last only weeks or months, this program was expanded throughout the school year with 12 sessions. The curriculum focused on four key skills areas that were particularly important for Japanese part -time high school students: the training of certainty, cognitive reconstruction, anger management and problem solving techniques. The program was delivered through collaboration between postgraduate students in clinical psychology and classroom teachers, ensuring that skills could be strengthened and generalized in all daily school experiences.
To assess the efficiency of the program, the researchers used a mixed approach, measuring students’ depressive symptoms, social skills and emotional regulation at three times throughout the year. They also gathered quality feedback through free text descriptions to understand students’ experiences with the program. Instead of using a traditional control group-which has proved logically impossible due to the restrictions of the curriculum-the team compared the results between students who often attended sessions (11 or more times) against those with lower participation (10 or fewer times).
The results revealed an impressive pattern: Students attending sessions did not regularly show an increase in depressive symptoms during the school year, while those with poor participation showed a significant deterioration of the symptoms. In addition, quality analysis of students’ feedback provided additional knowledge to the mechanisms of the program. Frequent participants have been steadily reporting by applying learning skills in their daily lives and showed a particular commitment to emotional adjustment techniques. Students who regularly attended used terms such as “daily life”, “useful” and “control” when describing their experiences, indicating a successful integration of the content of the program into their daily interactions. “Collectively, our findings show that the generalization of learning skills in school environments and the alignment of universal school -based prevention programs in this school context can prevent the deterioration of depressing symptoms between high school students“Notice Dr. Kambara.
It is worth noting, the consequences of this study extend beyond the Japanese education system and may apply to other countries with different educational environments. The design of the program faces practical restrictions that have historically limited mental health interventions in high schools, such as rigid curriculum requirements and limited time availability. “This extremely feasible approach to universal prevention for school arrangements can help improve mental health between high school students at grades 10 to 12, a population that is often not recognized in efforts to promote mental health“Dr. Kambara concludes.
Overall, this project represents an important step forward in dealing with the mental health crisis between high school students, offering a practical model that schools could adapt to the specific contexts and populations of students.
Source:
Magazine report:
Kambara, K., et al. (2025). Program for the Prevention of Universal School Prevention to Reduce Depressive Symptoms of High School Students in a part -time lesson: Development of the Miraes program in Japan. Review of children and youth services. doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2025.108343.
