Telephone counselling in Australia: applications and considerations for use

Coman, Greg J.; Burrows, Graham D.; Evans, Barry J.

doi:10.1080/03069880020047166

Cited by 31 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 19 publications

(57 reference statements)

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“…The type of crisis intervention provided and their target clientele varies widely from helpline to helpline (Coman, Burrows, & Evans, 2001). Services offered range from advice, information, listening, counselling, therapy, referral and follow up.…”

Section: Development Of Telephone Crisis Helplinesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Personality types and mental health experiences of those who volunteer for helplines

Paterson

Reniers

Völlm

2009

British Journal of Guidance & Counselling

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Telephone helplines have long been recognised to provide an effective way to reach individuals in crisis and several advantages of this anonymous form of intervention have been described. Most helplines use volunteers to respond to calls, including those specifically set up for students. Our study investigates differences in the personality traits neuroticism, extroversion, openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness, empathy as measured using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and mental health experiences between 54 volunteers and 52 non-volunteer students for a student delivered telephone helpline. Volunteers showed higher scores on the perspective taking and empathetic concern subscales of the IRI and scored higher on agreeableness. We could not identify any differences in mental health experiences between the two groups. Our findings suggest that volunteering for helplines may not be driven by volunteers' own experiences but rather by their personality characteristics.

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Section: Development Of Telephone Crisis Helplinesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Personality types and mental health experiences of those who volunteer for helplines

Paterson

Reniers

Völlm

2009

British Journal of Guidance & Counselling

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“…There has been a dramatic expansion of telephone counselling services in the past few decades, beginning in the 1960s (Lester, 1995), as well as widespread belief in their preventive and therapeutic value (Hornblow, 1986). Telephone counselling services are an integral part of community mental health care, as a result of their non-institutional orientation, easy accessibility and guaranteed anonymity (Coman, Burrows, & Evans, 2001;Hornblow, 1986). Despite their wide acceptability, empirical evidence for the effectiveness of telephone counselling services is lacking, often as a result of difficulties in conducting research in this area (Coman et al, 2001;Hornblow, 1986;Lester, 1995).…”

Section: Telephone Counselling Servicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Telephone counselling services are an integral part of community mental health care, as a result of their non-institutional orientation, easy accessibility and guaranteed anonymity (Coman, Burrows, & Evans, 2001;Hornblow, 1986). Despite their wide acceptability, empirical evidence for the effectiveness of telephone counselling services is lacking, often as a result of difficulties in conducting research in this area (Coman et al, 2001;Hornblow, 1986;Lester, 1995). Older studies focused largely on crisis intervention and measures of the effectiveness of such services included suicide rates, counsellor performance, counsellor satisfaction, caller satisfaction, change in caller's knowledge or behavior, caller compliance with counsellors' recommendations or suggestions, utilisation rates, and administrative criteria (Auerbach & Kilmann, 1977;Hornblow, 1986).…”

Section: Telephone Counselling Servicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-Directed Behavioral Family Intervention: Do Therapists Matter?

Morawska¹,

Stallman²,

Sanders³

et al. 2005

Child & Family Behavior Therapy

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Behavioral family intervention is an effective form of intervention for the prevention and treatment of a wide range of emotional and behavioral problems in children. There is a growing need to address the accessibility of these services. This paper reviews the literature on self-directed interventions designed to help parents manage difficult child behaviors. Evidence regarding the efficacy of interventions is reviewed, and some of the difficulties associated with self-directed programs are discussed. The Self-directed Triple P and Teen Triple P-Positive Parenting Programs are highlighted as examples of efficacious and effective behavioral family interventions fitting into a larger multilevel model of family intervention. The discussion of the efficacy and effectiveness of self-directed Triple P has implications for service delivery of parenting programs.

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“…Telephone support is perceived to be a low cost [3], flexible, private [4] and non-stigmatizing form of support [5]. This method of support is considered to reduce key barriers to health care, such as accessibility [6,7], particularly among those who may be less likely to utilise statutory services (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…younger service-users) [8]. Furthermore, access to telephone counselling may also empower individuals to seek help through more conventional treatment and support [4,6,9] as well as providing economic and resource benefits by reducing the number of consultations with medical/clinical professionals [1]. Currently there is a wide range of helpline services, across a number of countries, offering advice, information and support on a variety of public health issues such as problem gambling, smoking, alcoholism, and diabetes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

UK Breastfeeding Helpline support: An investigation of influences upon satisfaction

Thomson

Crossland

Dykes

et al. 2012

BMC Pregnancy Childbirth

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BackgroundHelpline services have become an increasingly popular mode of providing community access to information and expert information and advice in the health and welfare sector. This paper reports on data collected from 908 callers to UK-based breastfeeding helplines.MethodsA mixed methods design was adopted utilising a structured interview schedule to elicit callers experiences of the help and support received. In this paper we report on a series of multiple regression models undertaken to elicit the variables associated with callers’ ‘overall satisfaction’ with the helpline service. Three models were constructed; 1) caller demographic/call characteristics; 2) attitudes and effectiveness of service characteristics and 3) impact of support on caller wellbeing.ResultsOverall, 74.6% of callers were very satisfied, and 19.8% were satisfied with the help and support received by the helpline service. The caller demographic/call characteristics found to have a significant relationship with overall satisfaction related to the ease of getting through to the helpline and whether the woman had previously breastfed. Service characteristics associated with overall satisfaction related to whether the information received was helpful and whether the support helped to resolve their issues. The extent to which the volunteer was perceived to have enough time, whether the support had encouraged them to continue breastfeeding, met the caller’s expectations and/or provided the support the caller needed were also significantly associated. Caller outcomes contributing significantly to overall satisfaction concerned callers feeling less stressed, more confident, reassured and determined to continue breastfeeding following the call. Consideration of the effect sizes indicated that key factors associated with overall satisfaction related to: volunteers having sufficient time to deal with the callers’ issues; the information being perceived as helpful; the volunteers providing the support the callers needed; and for callers to feel reassured following the call.ConclusionOverall, these results highlight the value of the breastfeeding helpline(s) in terms of providing rapid, targeted, realistic, practical, and responsive support that provides affirmation and encouragement. The benefits include confidence building and callers feeling reassured and motivated to continue breastfeeding. Care needs to be taken to ensure that helpline support is easily accessible to ensure that callers and their families can access support when needed. This may require consideration of extension to a 24 hour service.

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Telephone counselling in Australia: applications and considerations for use

Cited by 31 publications

References 19 publications

Personality types and mental health experiences of those who volunteer for helplines

Personality types and mental health experiences of those who volunteer for helplines

Self-Directed Behavioral Family Intervention: Do Therapists Matter?

UK Breastfeeding Helpline support: An investigation of influences upon satisfaction

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