Consumer views on youth-friendly mental health services in South Australia

Loughhead, Mark; Guy, Sophie; Furber, Gareth; Segal, Leonie

doi:10.1080/18387357.2017.1360748

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Studies have examined youth perspectives of mental health care services (Coates and Howe, 2014;Loughhead et al, 2018), though little research has been conducted on their perspective of mental health education in a school setting. Kostenius et al (2020) found Scottish and Swedish youth aged 15 to 21 years reported teaching mental health should be given the same time as teaching physical health, and youth demonstrated a desire to increase their knowledge of mental health to reduce stigma.…”

Section: The Need For Mental Health Literacymentioning

confidence: 99%

“It’s Something That We All Need to Know”: Australian Youth Perspectives of Mental Health Literacy and Action in Schools

2022

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Young people expressed concern about their mental health before COVID-19, and these concerns have escalated in response to the pandemic. A lack of knowledge, stigma and unfamiliarity with how to seek help contribute to low self-efficacy in mental health care. There is a need for school settings to include mental health education, or mental health literacy (MHL), to address youth mental health needs. Evaluation of school-based MHL programs often occur without the consultation of key stakeholders, such as young people. This study aimed to understand young people’s experience of mental health education in their school and their perspectives of how future mental health education can be tailored to suit their needs. Four online group discussions were conducted with 13 participants aged 11 to 18 years old. Eight main themes were generated from these discussions: (1) limited mental health education and understanding in school, (2) struggle to help seek, (3) negative mental health attitudes, (4) desired content about mental health education, (5) understanding of mental health, (6) school as a place for support, (7) suggestions for mental health education, and (8) ways for schools to be responsive to youth needs. All the young people in this study expressed concerns around the lack of mental health education in their schools and indicated that this must change for the wellbeing of all youth.

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Section: The Need For Mental Health Literacymentioning

confidence: 99%

“It’s Something That We All Need to Know”: Australian Youth Perspectives of Mental Health Literacy and Action in Schools

2022

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“…Furthermore, despite the broad public awareness of counseling and other related mental health services in Western countries such as New Zealand, young people might still struggle to envisage precisely how these things work [ 50 , 53 , 54 ]. A consequence of incomplete knowledge about what actually happens in a mental health service is that young people may be more susceptible to harmful myths or inaccurate fictional representations of mental health care that form part of their media world [ 55 , 56 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Web-Based Content to Connect Young People With Real-life Mental Health Support: Qualitative Interview Study

Adeane¹,

Gibson²

2023

JMIR Form Res

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Background Young people experience high rates of mental health problems but make insufficient use of the formal services available to them. As young people are heavy users of the internet, there may be an untapped potential to use web-based content to encourage this hard-to-reach population to make better use of face-to-face mental health services. However, owing to the vast range of content available and the complexities in how young people engage with it, it is difficult to know what web-based content is most likely to resonate with this age group and facilitate their engagement with professional support. Objective This study aimed to identify the types of web-based content young people identified as more likely to prompt youth engagement with mental health services. Methods This study used a qualitative design conducted within a social constructionist epistemology that recognized the importance of youth empowerment in mental health. Digital interviews using WhatsApp instant messenger were conducted with 37 young people aged 16-23 years who participated as “expert informants” on the priorities and practices of youth in web-based spaces. The data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis to identify the types of web-based content that participants believed would encourage young people to reach out to a face-to-face mental health service for support. Results The analysis generated 3 main themes related to the research question. First, participants noted that a lack of information about available services and how they worked prevented young people from engaging with face-to-face mental health services. They proposed web-based content that provided clear information about relevant mental health services and how to access them. They also suggested the use of both text and video to provide young people with greater insight into how face-to-face counseling might work. Second, participants recommended content dedicated to combating misconceptions about mental health and negative portrayals of mental health services and professionals that are prevalent in their web-based spaces. They suggested content that challenged the stigma surrounding mental health and help seeking and highlighted the value of mental health services. Finally, participants suggested that young people would be more likely to respond to “relatable” digital stories of using mental health services, recounted in the context of a personal connection with someone they trusted. Conclusions This study offers recommendations for professionals and service providers on how to better engage young people with real-life mental health support using web-based content. Web-based content can be used to challenge some of the barriers that continue to prevent young people from accessing face-to-face mental health services and underlines the importance of including young people’s voices in the design of web-based mental health content.

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“…There are several factors that can contribute to their tendency to not access mental health services such as fear of what can happen to them during treatment, the need to trust an unknown person (a mental health professional), uncertainty caused by their lack of understanding of mental health problems and/or treatment and what it implies, and the stigma of being judged by their families, as well as challenges with finding the right intervention, help, and the lack of familiarity with the process. Youths identified several factors that could encourage their engagement in mental health interventions [ 3 ]. Flexibility in the delivery of intervention was considered an important factor, with services meeting the needs of consumers, improved quality of information, and materials being provided in the intervention emerging as the main themes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The REThink Online Therapeutic Game: A Usability Study

Iuga

David

2023

Children

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Background: Children and adolescents’ help-seeking behaviors are often limited by fear, uncertainty, and stigma, as well as challenges with finding the right intervention, help, and a lack of familiarity with the process. A promising direction for the development of therapeutic interventions targeted at children is embedding them into gamified interventions, known as therapeutic or serious games. The aim of this paper is to describe the protocol of the beta REThink therapeutic game and to evaluate the usability of the game in a sample of children and adolescents. Methods: The study was delivered in schools, where 137 children and adolescents aged between 9 and 16 years old played the levels of the REThink game, followed by filling in the usability questionnaire. Findings: The results show above average evaluations for all levels of the game, for every dimension evaluated, namely presence/immersion, enjoyment, learning effectiveness, narratives, goal clarity, adequacy of learning material, and motivation. This study contributes to the literature on the usability of cognitive behavioral therapy-based therapeutic games for improvements in the emotion regulation abilities of children and adolescents, which can guide researchers interested in testing the REThink game in different protocols, as well to encourage its use by mental health specialists and parents.

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Consumer views on youth-friendly mental health services in South Australia

Cited by 10 publications

References 17 publications

“It’s Something That We All Need to Know”: Australian Youth Perspectives of Mental Health Literacy and Action in Schools

“It’s Something That We All Need to Know”: Australian Youth Perspectives of Mental Health Literacy and Action in Schools

Using Web-Based Content to Connect Young People With Real-life Mental Health Support: Qualitative Interview Study

The REThink Online Therapeutic Game: A Usability Study

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