Is headspace making a difference to young people’s lives?

y three percentage points, and 2.1 percentage points for the matched ‘other treatment’ group. Both
changes are significant at the 1% level, and the effect size of the change over time within each
group, as measured by Cohen’s d, shows a bigger effect for the ‘headspace treatment’ group (-0.34)
than that observed for the matched ‘other treatment’ group (-0.24). These results were similar to the
comparison between the ‘headspace treatment’ and the ‘no treatment’ group; however, a greater
reduction in psychological distress occurred for young people who received headspace treatment.
The difference-in-difference results demonstrate that the ‘headspace treatment’ group had a greater
reduction in psychological distress over time when compared to the matched ‘other treatment’ group
- 0.96 percentage points. This result is significant at the 5% level. The effect size of these differences
is relatively weak with Cohen’s d = -0.11.
The distributional analysis shows an increase in the proportion of young people in both the
‘headspace treatment’ group and matched ‘other treatment’ group in the low and moderate K10
groups over the period, and a corresponding decrease in the very high K10 group. All changes are
highly statistically significant. Difference-in-difference results show that only one of the four K10
groupings reveals a stronger improvement for young people treated at headspace compared with
those that received another mental health treatment. The proportion of the ‘headspace treatment’
group with high levels of distress decreased 5.4 percentage points more than the ‘other treatment’
group. This result is statistically significant at the 10% level and the effect size is -0.09.
Incapacity
A reduction in incapacity, as measured by days out of role and days cut back occurred for both the
‘headspace treatment’ group and the matched ‘other treatment’ group (Table 4.8). The ‘headspace
treatment’ group had an average decrease in days out of role from 2.9 to 2.4, and days cut back from
8.2 to 6.0 between Waves 1 and 2. Both differences are significant at the 1% level. The matched
‘other treatment’ group also experienced a decrease in the average days out of role (0.21, 5%
significance) and days cut back; however, the decrease was smaller and insignificant for the days
cut back indicator. Effect sizes for the ‘headspace treatment’ group were larger than for the ‘other
treatment’ group.
The difference-in-difference results for these outcome indicators illustrate that the ‘headspace
treatment’ group did slightly better in terms of the reduction of days out of role and days cut back
when compared to the matched group of young people that received an alternative mental health
treatment between the survey waves. The difference-in-differences for days out of role is -0.34
percentage points greater for the ‘headspace treatment’ group and -2.01 greater for this group when
assessing days cut back. Both results are significant at the 1% level; however, the commencing wave
1 differences for days cut back need to be considered when interpreting these results.
The distribution results of changes in days out of role and days cut back are similar to that observed
between the ‘headspace treatment’ and ‘no treatment’ group. An overall improvement in days out
of role, particularly in the proportion of young people that report zero days incapacitated by mental
health in the last 30 days was observed. This effect is much stronger for the ‘headspace treatment’
group than the matched ‘other treatment’ group (Cohen’s d = 0.35 and 0.19 respectively). Differencein-difference
results show that the ‘headspace treatment’ group increased reports of zero days out
of role by 7.8 percentage points more than the group that received ‘other treatment’. This result is
statistically significant at the 5% level. A greater reduction in reports of between 15-28 days out of
role is observed for the ‘headspace treatment’ group when compared to the ‘no treatment’ group –
4.3 percentage points. This result is also statistically reliable and the effect size is estimated at -0.15.
Days cut back show similar results, with greater improvements for the ‘headspace treatment’
group when compared with the matched ‘other treatment’ group. As with the above analysis, clear
differences in the wave 1 distributions of each treatment group exist, again indicating that the
‘headspace treatment’ group is likely to be experiencing more complex issues in relation to mental
health, even with similar K10 distributions.
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headspace Evaluation Final Report
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