Educating Adolescents About Assessing Mental Health During Well Care Visits

BACKGROUND: Growing rates of mental illness among the pediatric population have led to increased morbidity and mortality, with suicide being the second leading cause of death among children aged 10-14. Barriers to mental health (MH) care, including limited access to resources, stigma, and education, perpetuate the crisis. Pediatric primary care providers must seize every opportunity to bridge this gap. This project created an age-appropriate virtual educational program for adolescents aged 12 to 18 on the MH assessment tool, the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), which is commonly used during well-child visits. METHODS: module delivered on clinic tablets. Using a backward-design approach, every screen and interaction was mapped to four learning objectives focused on (1) feelings literacy, (2) PHQ-9 comprehension, (3) early-detection awareness, and (4) help-seeking efficacy. RESULTS: As a clinician-designed module not yet formally deployed to the target population, formative feedback was limited to informal review by four adolescent testers prior to final release. Teen testers who reviewed the material requested shorter card-back text, an option to replay narration, and higher color contrast on negative-emotion cards. CONCLUSION: By grounding the module in the validated PHQ-9 screening tool and evidence-based instructional design principles, and by engaging key stakeholders, the interactive virtual educational program bridges critical MH gaps by educating and empowering adolescents to understand their mental well-being and proactively engage in their care.