Annemarie Wright

Influence of gender on mental health literacy in young Australians

Objectives: To determine the effects of gender on mental health literacy in young people between 12 and 25 years of age. Design: Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing was employed to conduct a crosssectional structured interview focusing on young peoples awareness of depression and psychosis. Participants: The sample comprised 1207 young Australians (539 males and 668 females) between the ages of 12-25 recruited from two metropolitan and two regional areas within Victoria. Six hundred and six respondents were presented a depression vignette and 601 were presented a psychosis vignette. Results: Female respondents (60.7%) were significantly more likely to correctly identify depression in the vignette as compared to male respondents (34.5%). No significant gender differences were noted for the psychosis vignette. Males were less significantly likely to endorse seeing a doctor or psychologist/counsellor for the treatment of psychosis. Males were also significantly more likely than females to endorse alcohol as a way of dealing with depression and antibiotics as useful for dealing with psychosis. Conclusion: Gender differences in mental health literacy are striking. Males showed significantly lower recognition of symptoms associated with mental illness and were more likely endorse the use alcohol to deal with mental health problems. Such factors may contribute to the delays in help seeking seen in young males. Further research is needed to delineate how these gender differences in young people may obstruct help seeking, early intervention and other aspects of mental health service delivery.

Beliefs about appropriate first aid for young people with mental disorders: findings from an Australian national survey of youth and parents

Objective:  To determine the mental health first‐aid knowledge and beliefs of young people and their parents.

Beliefs of young people and their parents about the effectiveness of interventions for mental disorders.

Objective: Mental disorders often have their first onset during youth, so that young people need to have knowledge to support appropriate decision-making. The aim of the study was to find out which interventions they see as potentially helpful for a range of mental disorders. Method: In 2006, interviews were carried out with 3746 Australians aged 12–25 years and 2005 of their parents. Participants were presented with a case vignette describing either psychosis, depression, depression with alcohol misuse, or social phobia. Questions were asked about the likely helpfulness of a broad range of possible interventions. Results: There was broad agreement from young people and their parents about what interventions are likely to be helpful and these views applied across the range of disorders presented. These interventions could be described as general and informal sources of help, rather than as specialist mental health services. The most negative views were about psychiatric medications and admission to hospital. Conclusions: The findings suggest a need to improve knowledge of appropriate treatment options and to give more attention to the evaluation of interventions that are widely accepted by young people but underresearched. The findings also suggest ways in which interventions can be labelled to make them more acceptable to this age group.

First aid strategies that are helpful to young people developing a mental disorder: beliefs of health professionals compared to young people and parents.

BackgroundLittle is known about the best ways for a member of the public to respond when someone in their social network develops a mental disorder. Controlled trials are not feasible in this area, so expert consensus may be the best guide.MethodsTo assess expert views, postal surveys were carried out with Australian GPs, psychiatrists and psychologists listed on professional registers and with mental health nurses who were members of a professional college. These professionals were asked to rate the helpfulness of 10 potential first aid strategies for young people with one of four disorders: depression, depression with alcohol misuse, social phobia and psychosis. Data were obtained from 470 GPs, 591 psychiatrists, 736 psychologists and 522 mental health nurses, with respective response rates of 24%, 35%, 40% and 32%. Data on public views were available from an earlier telephone survey of 3746 Australian youth aged 12–25 years and 2005 of their parents, which included questions about the same strategies.ResultsA clear majority across the four professions believed in the helpfulness of listening to the person, suggesting professional help-seeking, making an appointment for the person to see a GP and asking about suicidal feelings. There was also a clear majority believing in the harmfulness of ignoring the person, suggesting use of alcohol to cope, and talking to them firmly. Compared to health professionals, young people and their parents were less likely to believe that asking about suicidal feelings would be helpful and more likely to believe it would be harmful. They were also less likely to believe that talking to the person firmly would be harmful.ConclusionSeveral first aid strategies can be recommended to the public based on agreement of clinicians about their likely helpfulness. In particular, there needs to be greater public awareness of the helpfulness of asking a young person with a mental health problem about suicidal feelings.

First aid actions taken by young people for mental health problems in a close friend or family member: findings from an Australian national survey of youth.

This study examined the first aid actions taken by young people to help someone they know and care about who was experiencing a mental health problem and the characteristics of the first aid provider (respondent) and recipient which influence these first aid actions. Participants in a national survey of Australian youth (aged 12-25 years) completed a two-year follow-up phone interview based on one of the following disorders in vignettes: depression, depression with alcohol misuse, social phobia and psychosis. Participants were asked if they knew a family member or close friend who had experienced a similar problem to the vignette character since the initial interview and those who did reported on any actions taken to help the person. Of the 2005 participants interviewed, 609 (30%) reported knowing someone with a similar problem, with depression (with or without alcohol misuse) being the most common problem. Respondent age and gender, recipient gender, and type of mental health problem, all influenced first aid actions. Findings indicate that peers are a major source of support for young people with mental health problems and underscore some important areas and subgroups of young people to target for interventions to improve young peoples mental health first aid skills.

Labels used by young people to describe mental disorders: factors associated with their development

Objective: The aim of the present study was to describe the most common terms used to label mental disorders and examine how label use develops with age, and the factors that may mediate any of these developmental changes. Method: A national telephone survey was conducted with 2802 Australian young people aged 12–25 years and 1528 co-resident parents. Label use was assessed in response to one of three randomly assigned vignettes describing symptoms of depression, psychosis and social phobia. Results: Depression was correctly labelled twice as frequently as psychosis, whereas social phobia was rarely correctly labelled and most commonly labelled using lay terms. Use of accurate labels increased with age and female subjects were more likely to use them. For all vignettes, likelihood of using an accurate label was associated with exposure to mental health community awareness campaigns and accuracy of label used by a parent. Exposure to a family member or friend who had experienced the disorder and sought help was associated with accurate labelling of the depression and psychosis vignettes only. Male gender was more frequently associated with inaccurate label use. Conclusions: Accuracy of labelling by young people varies greatly between disorders. More predictors were found for use of accurate labels compared to almost all other non-diagnostic labels. An understanding of the landscape of labelling of mental disorders and factors that mediate their development can be harnessed to improve the effectiveness of community education initiatives. This in turn has the potential to improve labelling of mental disorders by young people and increase appropriate help-seeking during this crucial onset period.

Actions taken by young people to deal with mental disorders: findings from an Australian national survey of youth.

Aims: The study examined actions taken by young people to deal with mental disorders and the factors associated with help‐seeking and self‐help behaviours.

A Comparison of Clinician, Youth, and Parent Beliefs About Helpfulness of Interventions for Early Psychosis

OBJECTIVE This study explored whether there are gaps between the beliefs of clinicians and those of young people and their parents about the appropriate interventions for early psychosis. METHODS Postal surveys of 105 Australian general practitioners, 155 psychiatrists, 183 psychologists, and 106 mental health nurses asked about the likely helpfulness of a wide range of potential interventions, covering helping professions, medications, psychological interventions, complementary interventions, and self-help. The results from these clinicians were compared with data from a national telephone survey of 968 Australian youths (ages 12-25 years) and 531 of their parents. RESULTS Young people and their parents were less likely than the clinicians to endorse the helpfulness of seeing a psychiatrist, using mental health services, and taking antipsychotic medication. On the other hand, young people and their parents were more likely to endorse informal social supports, generic counseling, and general stress reduction methods. CONCLUSIONS The gap in intervention beliefs may be a contributor to delays in seeking professional help and adherence to treatment. Efforts are needed to improve public knowledge about psychosis treatment and to change mental health services so that they better meet consumer expectations.

Actions that young people can take to prevent depression, anxiety and psychosis: Beliefs of health professionals and young people

BACKGROUND Members of the public know about actions they can take to prevent major physical diseases, but there has been less attention to the publics capacity to take action to prevent mental disorders. Since mental disorders often have first onset during youth, young peoples beliefs about prevention are of particular relevance. METHODS Young peoples prevention beliefs were assessed by a national telephone survey of 3746 Australian youth aged 12-25 years. To allow a comparison with professional beliefs, postal surveys were carried out with 470 GPs, 591 psychiatrists, 736 psychologists and 522 mental health nurses. Respondents were asked to rate the helpfulness of 9 potential strategies in relation to the prevention of four disorders: depression, depression with alcohol misuse, social phobia and psychosis. RESULTS Both young people and professionals believed that mental disorders could be prevented by physical activity, keeping contact with family and friends, avoiding use of substances, and making time for relaxing activities. However, professionals disagreed with young people about the benefits of avoiding stressful situations, particularly for social phobia. Professionals were also less optimistic about the prevention of psychosis than depression and anxiety. LIMITATIONS The surveys assessed beliefs, but not actual use of preventive strategies. CONCLUSIONS Given the beliefs of young people and professionals that prevention is possible, there is fertile ground for health promotion in this area. However, young people need to be aware that avoiding stressful situations may not be helpful for anxiety.

A population assessment of young people's mental health literacy

The aim of this study was to assess young peoples mental health literacy in relation to psychosis and depression. It forms part of the baseline measure for the evaluation of a community awareness campaign called The Compass Strategy.