TY - JOUR PY - 2024// TI - Cohort profile: the social media, smartphone use and self-harm in young people (3S-YP) study-a prospective, observational cohort study of young people in contact with mental health services JO - PLoS one A1 - Bye, Amanda A1 - Carter, Ben A1 - Leightley, Daniel A1 - Trevillion, Kylee A1 - Liakata, Maria A1 - Branthonne-Foster, Stella A1 - Cross, Samantha A1 - Zenasni, Zohra A1 - Carr, Ewan A1 - Williamson, Grace A1 - Vega Viyuela, Alba A1 - Dutta, Rina SP - e0299059 EP - e0299059 VL - 19 IS - 5 N2 - OBJECTIVES: The Social media, Smartphone use and Self-Harm (3S-YP) study is a prospective observational cohort study to investigate the mechanisms underpinning associations between social media and smartphone use and self-harm in a clinical youth sample. We present here a comprehensive description of the cohort from baseline data and an overview of data available from baseline and follow-up assessments.

METHODS: Young people aged 13-25 years were recruited from a mental health trust in England and followed up for 6 months. Self-report data was collected at baseline and monthly during follow-up and linked with electronic health records (EHR) and user-generated data.

FINDINGS: A total of 362 young people enrolled and provided baseline questionnaire data. Most participants had a history of self-harm according to clinical (n = 295, 81.5%) and broader definitions (n = 296, 81.8%). At baseline, there were high levels of current moderate/severe anxiety (n = 244; 67.4%), depression (n = 255; 70.4%) and sleep disturbance (n = 171; 47.2%). Over half used social media and smartphones after midnight on weekdays (n = 197, 54.4%; n = 215, 59.4%) and weekends (n = 241, 66.6%; n = 263, 72.7%), and half met the cut-off for problematic smartphone use (n = 177; 48.9%). Of the cohort, we have questionnaire data at month 6 from 230 (63.5%), EHR data from 345 (95.3%), social media data from 110 (30.4%) and smartphone data from 48 (13.3%).

CONCLUSION: The 3S-YP study is the first prospective study with a clinical youth sample, for whom to investigate the impact of digital technology on youth mental health using novel data linkages. Baseline findings indicate self-harm, anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance and digital technology overuse are prevalent among clinical youth. Future analyses will explore associations between outcomes and exposures over time and compare self-report with user-generated data in this cohort.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 1932-6203 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299059 ID - ref1 ER -