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Background: Social prescribing is a mechanism of connecting patients with non-medical forms of support within the community and has been shown to improve mental health and wellbeing in adult populations. In the last few years, it has been used in child and youth settings with promising results. Currently, pathways are being developed for social prescribing in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) to support children and young people on treatment waiting lists. The Wellbeing While Waiting study will evaluate whether social prescribing benefits the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people., Methods: This study utilises an observational, hybrid type II implementation-effectiveness design. Up to ten CAMHS who are developing social prescribing pathways as part of a programme run across England with support from the Social Prescribing Youth Network will participate. Outcomes for children and young people receiving social prescribing whilst on CAMHS waiting lists will be compared to a control group recruited prior to the pathway roll-out. Questionnaire data will be collected at baseline, 3 months and 6 months. Primary outcomes for children and young people are mental health symptoms (including anxiety, depression, stress, emotional and behavioural difficulties). Secondary outcomes include: loneliness, resilience, happiness, whether life is worthwhile, life satisfaction, and service use. An implementation strand using questionnaires and interviews will explore the acceptability, feasibility, and suitability of the pathway, potential mechanisms of action and their moderating effects on the outcomes of interest, as well as the perceived impact of social prescribing. Questionnaire data will be analysed mainly using difference-in-differences or controlled interrupted time series analysis. Interview data will be analysed using reflexive thematic analysis., Discussion: The Wellbeing While Waiting study will provide the first rigorous evidence of the impact of social prescribing for children and young people on waiting lists for mental health treatment. Findings will help inform the prioritisation, commissioning, and running of social prescribing in other CAMHS. To maximise impact, findings will be available on the study website ( https://sbbresearch.org ) and disseminated via national and international networks., Trial Registration: N/A., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Rationale: Leisure activities have wide-ranging benefits for physical and mental health. However, previous studies have often focused on "leisure" as a homogeneous group of activities. This study was therefore designed to take a prospective and comparative approach exploring different types of leisure activities, as well as investigating whether frequency of engagement is associated with strength of benefits., Method: Data from the 1970 British Cohort Study Waves 9 (age 42) and 10 (age 46) were analysed (N = 5,639). Eight domains derived from the SF-36 health survey questionnaire were used to measure health functioning (general health, vitality, bodily pain, social functioning, physical functioning, mental health, role limitations due to emotional, and role limitations due to physical problems). Leisure activities included physical activity, culture engagement, arts participation, volunteering or community engagement, and literature activities. Both ordinary least squares and logistic regressions were applied., Results: Physical activity was associated with greater levels of physical functioning, general health, and vitality at higher frequencies, while cultural engagement was associated with social functioning and physical functioning when engaged in several times a year. Arts participation and literature activities had a general negative association with health functioning. Engagements in volunteering/community groups showed varying associations with health functioning (both positive and negative) depending on the levels of engagements., Conclusion: This research suggests that the types of leisure activities and levels of engagement can have differential associations with health amongst middle-aged adults. This may be helpful for public health initiatives and programmes such as social prescribing schemes when formulating programmes, especially regarding 'dosage' of engagement. Further, the overall benefits of high engagement frequency suggest that increasing leisure engagement could play an important role in supporting improving health and wellbeing at a population level., (© 2022. The Author(s).)