Children's experiences with chat support and telephone support.

BACKGROUND

In line with the wider trend of offering support via the Internet, many counseling and referral services for children have introduced online chat, often in addition to a traditional telephone service.

METHODS

A comparative study was conducted between the telephone service and the confidential one-on-one online chat service of the Dutch Kindertelefoon. The design included a concise pretest and a posttest (n = 902). The study also comprised a follow-up test (n = 213), which included the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire.

RESULTS

Children experienced a higher sense of well-being and a reduced severity of their problems after consulting the Kindertelefoon. The results were slightly more favorable for the chat service than for the telephone service. The follow-up survey showed that many of the children who contact the Kindertelefoon suffer from relatively severe emotional problems.

CONCLUSIONS

Both the telephone and the web-based support improved the children's well-being and decreased their perceived burden of problem. The results of this study underline the need for closer cooperation between child helplines and mental health and child welfare services.