None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Mental health problems often have first onset during adolescence and when this happens teenagers frequently turn to their peers, rather than adults, for support. The core aim of this proposal is to test the effectiveness of a new public health intervention, ‘teen Mental Health First Aid’ (teen MHFA), designed to improve the quality of peer guidance and support for adolescents with mental health problems. teen MHFA is a new 3 x 75min training course for adolescents in High School years 10-12. The program is evidence-based and developed from a Delphi expert consensus study with youth mental health consumer advocates and MHFA instructors who work with youth, and from research evidence on barriers to help-seeking. An uncontrolled evaluation has been carried out and showed positive effects on knowledge of how to help a peer, confidence in helping, stigma, help-seeking intentions and participant mental health. The current project aims to carry out a rigorous evaluation with a control group and to investigate the longer-term impacts of the training on student experiences of providing support and guidance to peers. Schools will be randomized to receive either teen MHFA or physical first aid training. Ten schools will receive the interventions over a three-year period. Student questionnaires will be completed at four time points: before training begins, immediately after training, 1 year after training and 18 month after. Questionnaires will assess changes in knowledge, attitudes, intentions and behaviour towards peers with mental health problems, as well as reports of support received from peers, and participant mental health. If found to be effective, this public health intervention can be easily disseminated through the existing MHFA Australia Instructor networks nationally and worldwide.
Interventions
teen Mental Health First Aid (teen MHFA) is a training course for adolescents in the upper High School years. The key messages of the program were developed using the expert consensus of youth mental health consumer advocates and MHFA instructors who work with youth. The program focuses on developing knowledge and skills in:
- recognising warning signs that a peer is developing a mental health problem
- understanding how to talk to a peer about mental health and seeking help
- when and how to t
teen Mental Health First Aid (teen MHFA) is a training course for adolescents in the upper High School years. The key messages of the program were developed using the expert consensus of youth mental health consumer advocates and MHFA instructors who work with youth. The program focuses on developing knowledge and skills in: - recognising warning signs that a peer is developing a mental health problem - understanding how to talk to a peer about mental health and seeking help - when and how to tell a responsible adult - where to find appropriate and helpful resources about mental illness and professional help - how to respond in a crisis situation, including where a peer is suicidal or self-harming. The teen MHFA Program consists of 3x 75 minute sessions of a teen MHFA training course for adolescents. These 3 sessions are spread over a minimum of 2 and maximum of 4 weeks (usually 1 session p/week for 3 weeks) depending on each school's timetabling requirements. Sessions are administered by an experienced teen MHFA instructor, with a regular classroom staff also present to class groups of between 15-30 students. Also included in the teen MHFA program is the offer of the 14-hour Youth MHFA course for teachers and parents of adolescents who attend the teen MHFA course. This is an optional course administered by the same experienced instructor, and can be given via either: 2 days of 7 hours of training, or 4x 4-hour sessions of an evening (allows time for extra breaks), depending on what suits each school community. While attendance is optional a register of attendance will be taken by the instructor for the purposes of sending a certificate of completion to those completing the course. In the following year, a new cohort of Year 10 students will receive the cross-over (opposite) intervention, while the original cohort complete the (second follow-up of three with post completed and 18 month to come) 12 month follow-up measures after the first intervention.
Sponsors
University of Melbourne
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Prevention
Masking
Blinded (masking used) (Investigator)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
15 Years to 19 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
Schools to be included in the trial must be public high schools located in greater Melbourne or regional Victoria. Schools must not have received any mental health first aid training for students in their current Year 9 and 10 cohorts. All Year 10 students from host schools will be eligible to participate. We estimate conservatively that there will be 100 Year 10 students per school.
Exclusion criteria
teen MHFA is not designed as a suicide postvention program. If a recent suicide has occurred in a school, the appropriateness of running the teen MHFA program will be assessed before formally recruiting the school.
Outcome results
None listed