The impact of the Luton social prescribing programme on mental well-being: a quantitative before-and-after study

Background Social prescribing programmes expand the range of options available to primary care health professionals to address patients’ psychosocial needs, impacting on their health and well-being. The objective of this study was to assess the change in the mental well-being of service users after participation in the Luton social prescribing programme. Methods Skew-normal (SN) regression was applied to analyse the change in mental well-being post-intervention (N = 63). The short Warwick–Edinburgh mental well-being scale was used as the outcome measure. Results The SN regression found a statistically significant change (P < 0.0001) in the average difference score between baseline and post-intervention measures. However, the observed change does not appear to be of clinical relevance. No significant associations in mental well-being scores by gender, age or working status were found. Conclusion Findings of this study indicate that social prescribing may have the potential to improve the mental well-being of service users. The study findings contribute to the sparse evidence base on social prescribing outcomes by socio-demographic characteristics of participants and highlight the importance of considering subgroup analysis in future research.