None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Of the one in four young people who are diagnosed with mental disorders, only 35% seek professional help. There are many barriers preventing young people from seeking help such as: lack of recognition of mental health problems, lack of awareness about appropriate mental health services, readiness to seek help, and the stigma associated with mental illness and seeking professional health. Technological solutions have been identified as one of the key areas that should be utilised to improve treatments and access to care. Young people often seek information about health online and often prefer anonymous sources of help to traditional services. Nevertheless, despite the broad interest and vast amount of online services available to assist young people with mental health problems, evaluation is rarely conducted to determine the impact of online services on help-seeking. Focusing particularly on young adults aged 18 to 25 years, we aim to investigate the effects of a dedicated online tool to facilitate help-seeking in young adults compared to usual search strategies. All surveys and recruitment will be conducted online. Young adults will be asked to complete four surveys at baseline, post-intervention, one month and three months. This project is of international relevance as one of the first dedicated online tool to facilitate help-seeking for young adults and one of the few to evaluate access to care as an outcome. It will also help inform policy and practice with evidence on whether technical solutions can increase help- seeking for young adults using a stepped-care approach.
Interventions
The ‘What’s Up?’ website is a dedicated online service designed to facilitate help-seeking for young adults. ‘What’s Up?’ matches the user’s needs and preferences with appropriate online and offline services. The website consists of two sections: (1) the triage process and (2) recommendations.
THE TRIAGE PROCESS: Participants will sign in using a secure username and password. Then they will be triaged by their responses on (1) area of concern, (2) severity of concern and (3) preferred service
The ‘What’s Up?’ website is a dedicated online service designed to facilitate help-seeking for young adults. ‘What’s Up?’ matches the user’s needs and preferences with appropriate online and offline services. The website consists of two sections: (1) the triage process and (2) recommendations. THE TRIAGE PROCESS: Participants will sign in using a secure username and password. Then they will be triaged by their responses on (1) area of concern, (2) severity of concern and (3) preferred service modality. There are four servie modalities to choose from: 1) face-to-face options (e.g., general practitioners and headspace centres), 2) online chat services (e.g., e-headspace), 3) phone lines (e.g., lifeline) and 4) online information sites (e.g., reachout.com.au). RECOMMENDATIONS: Based on this triage, users will be given the names of services appropriate to their needs plus an additional 'recommended' service. This latter recommendation is based on the type and severity of the issue. Users can click on each service to get detailed information outlining what to expect from the service, a successful story from a young person who has used it, and what to prepare for when accessing the service. All services will have a link to the service website, the phone number or in the case of face-to-face services, a link to a website allowing participants to find a service close to them. Many of the online services are free to access. For paid services (such as some GPs), information is provided about how much participants can expect to pay and any rebates they may be entitled to receive. LENGTH OF INTERVENTION: The young person’s journey through the triage process and exploration of the recommendations is designed to take a minimum of 90 seconds. Some users may wish to spend longer to explore multiple issues and read the information about many different services, which will therefore take longer. Users can also return to the website at any time they wish for the duration of the trial (approximately three months) to explore different issues and different services. For the purposes of this trial, a participant will be considered to have completed the intervention if they have completed the triage process and clicked on the recommendation page at least once. The number of times participants complete or log on to the website over the three months of the trial will also be used in the analyses.
Sponsors
University of Melbourne
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Prevention
Masking
Blinded (masking used) (Subject, Caregiver, Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to 25 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
To be included in the study, the young adults must: (1) be between 18 and 25 years of age inclusive, (2) live in Australia, (3) have two contact details such as a current valid email address and a phone number, and (4) as the program is only available in English, it is important that the participants all have sufficient English reading and writing abilities to complete the surveys and complete the Link program. As all young people could benefit from the information provided on the website regardless of mental health issues (e.g., information on bullying or relationships), participants do not need to have a mental health issue to be included in this study. Although, our pilot study indicates that 60% of participants are likely to have a moderate to severe disorder based on the k10.
Exclusion criteria
Non-English speaking Living outside Australia Not between 18-25 years of age
Outcome results
None listed