ReviewFrontiers in child and adolescent psychiatry2025
What school-based interventions work to improve attendance in secondary school students with persistent absence? A systematic review.
Review in Frontiers in child and adolescent psychiatry, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Exploratory Longitudinal Associations Between SAPs and Individual and Contextual Variables: Toward the Development of Educational Guidelines.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- School absence and mental health service referral: Cohort study of a South London data linkage.JCPP advances · 2026Article
- What Works to Keep Students in School? A Meta-Analysis of Interventions to Reduce School Absenteeism.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Absence from school is an increasing concern internationally, with significant consequences for children's mental health, academic achievement, and future opportunities. The multifaceted causes of absenteeism, including factors like emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA), have prompted a variety of interventions aimed at addressing this complexity. These efforts include recent plans from the UK government. This systematic review evaluates the effectiveness of school-based interventions targeting persistently absent secondary school students, to inform evidence-based strategies. Methods: A systematic search was conducted across six electronic databases in health and education for studies published up to April 2024. Eligible studies assessed school-based interventions aimed at improving attendance among persistently absent secondary school students. The Effective Public Health Practice Project (EPHPP) and Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) tools were used to assess study quality. A bioecological framework was applied to map interventions to influence levels and evaluate their impact on attendance. Results: Sixteen studies, mostly from the United States with one from Australia, were included. Study designs varied, including randomised controlled trials, quasi-experimental designs, and cohort studies, with quality ratings from weak to moderate. Interventions demonstrated variable effectiveness, reflecting the challenges of addressing persistent absenteeism. Favourable outcomes were reported for mentoring schemes, family involvement initiatives, school counselling, incentive programmes, school-based healthcare, and a police partnership strategy. However, inconsistencies in significance and impact were observed across studies. Conclusion: The evidence base for interventions to improve attendance among persistently absent secondary school students remains limited. High-quality research is needed to build robust evidence, incorporating comprehensive attendance metrics alongside academic and health outcomes. Future studies should document and analyse demographic subgroups and include qualitative approaches to address the needs of diverse at-risk groups and guide intervention design. Systematic Review Registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD42024490992, PROSPERO [CRD42024490992].
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.