The impact of the Luton social prescribing programme on mental well-being: a quantitative before-and-after study
Abstract
Background Social prescribing programmes expand the range of options available to primary care health professionals to address patients’ psychosocial needs, impacting on their health and well-being. The objective of this study was to assess the change in the mental well-being of service users after participation in the Luton social prescribing programme. Methods Skew-normal (SN) regression was applied to analyse the change in mental well-being post-intervention (N = 63). The short Warwick–Edinburgh mental well-being scale was used as the outcome measure. Results The SN regression found a statistically significant change (P < 0.0001) in the average difference score between baseline and post-intervention measures. However, the observed change does not appear to be of clinical relevance. No significant associations in mental well-being scores by gender, age or working status were found. Conclusion Findings of this study indicate that social prescribing may have the potential to improve the mental well-being of service users. The study findings contribute to the sparse evidence base on social prescribing outcomes by socio-demographic characteristics of participants and highlight the importance of considering subgroup analysis in future research.Citation
Pescheny JV, Gunn LH, Pappas Y, Randhawa G (2021) 'The impact of the Luton social prescribing programme on mental well-being: a quantitative before-and-after study', Journal of Public Health, 43 (1), pp.e69-e76.Publisher
Oxford University PressJournal
Journal of Public HealthPubMed ID
31883018Type
ArticleLanguage
enISSN
1741-3842EISSN
1741-3850ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1093/pubmed/fdz155