A Scoping Review of Participatory Action Research to Promote Mental Health and Resilience in Youth and Adolescents

Mental health and resilience are closely connected to issues of power and voice. Participatory action research (PAR) describes participatory approaches in research, where all parties are ideally involved in the knowledge creation, as collaborators and co-researchers in the research process. The authors conducted a scoping review and explored ten scientific data bases to understand how PAR studies promote participation of youth in studies of mental health and resilience. Analyses of n = 54 studies revealed the target populations, types of youth related methods, and the authentic involvement of youth and adolescents in stages of PAR. While many studies embraced the concepts of engagement in active research processes from inception to action, only 17 include youth on boards, 18 in preparation stage and 28 in data collection and/or analysis. The findings emphasize the potential of PAR to realize the voice of youth in all aspects of participatory research.