Objectives: To assess young people's ability to recognise clinically defined depression and psychosis, the types of help they thought appropriate for these problems, their knowledge of appropriate treatments, and their perceptions regarding prognosis. Design: A cross‐sectional telephone survey using structured interviews. Vignettes of a person with either depression or psychosis were presented, followed by questions related to recognition of the disorder, best forms of treatment and the prognosis. Participants: A randomly selected sample of 1207 young people aged 12–25 years. Setting: Melbourne, Victoria, and surrounding regional and rural areas. Outcome measures: Responses to a mental health literacy questionnaire. Results: Almost half the respondents were able to identify depression correctly, whereas only a quarter identified psychosis correctly. Counsellors and family or friends were the most commonly cited forms of best help, with family or friends preferred by the younger age group for depression. General practitioners were considered more helpful for depression, and psychiatrists and psychologists more helpful for psychosis. Most respondents considered counselling and psychotherapy to be helpful. However, more than half the respondents expressed negative or equivocal views regarding the helpfulness of recommended pharmacological treatments. Conclusions: The limitations we identified in youth mental health literacy may contribute to the low rates of treatment and the long duration of untreated illness reported in other studies. There is a need for initiatives to enhance mental health literacy among young people, and those close to them, if benefits of early treatment are to be realised.

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This article reviews the use of photographs as data within the social sciences as well as defining related terminology used over the past century. It then examines the use of photos as stimuli for talking about health settings before presenting three recent case studies where photo-interviewing has been used successfully in health evaluation and research. Advantages and limitations of the method are considered.

This paper examines two recent successful school-based health initiatives in Victoria, particularly in relation to factors that seem to foster program sustainability. These programs, dealing with drug education and healthy eating, are described before presenting two different methods (individual and group) used to determine elements that allow for the continuation of such projects. The findings on sustainability from each program are discussed using the broad areas of factors associated with the programs themselves; those associated with the context in which the programs were implemented; and finally, those factors external to the programs and their implementation contexts. These results indicate a strong congruence with factors identified in the literature but also highlight the influence of the use of change theory in strengthening sustainability approaches in program development as well as the need to focus on funding options in forward planning. The possible roles for evaluators in assisting program development and supporting the integration of factors supporting sustained use are also discussed.