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Introduction: Successful adoption of POCTs (Point-of-Care tests) for COVID-19 in care homes requires the identification of ideal use cases and a full understanding of the contextual and usability factors that affect test results and minimise biosafety risks. This paper presents a scoping-usability and test performance study of a microfluidic immunofluorescence assay for COVID-19 in care homes. Methods: A mixed-methods evaluation was conducted in four UK care homes to scope usability and to assess the agreement with qRT-PCR. A dry run with luminescent dye was conducted to explore biosafety issues. Results: The agreement analysis was conducted on 227 asymptomatic participants (159 staff and 68 residents) and 14 symptomatic participants (5 staff and 9 residents). Asymptomatic specimens showed 50% (95% CI:1.3%−98.7%) positive agreement and 96% (95% CI: 92.5%−98.1%) negative agreement with overall prevalence and bias-adjusted Kappa (PABAK) of 0.911 (95% CI: 0.857−0.965). Symptomatic specimens showed 83.3% (95% CI: 35.9%−99.6%) positive agreement and 100% (95% CI: 63.1%−100%) negative agreement with overall prevalence and bias-adjusted Kappa (PABAK) of 0.857 (95% CI: 0.549−1). The dry run highlighted four main sources of contamination that led to the modification of the standard operating procedures. Simulation post-modification showed no further evidence of contamination. Conclusion: Careful consideration of biosafety issues and contextual factors associated with care home are mandatory for safe use the POCT. Whilst POCT may have some utility for ruling out COVID-19, further diagnostic accuracy evaluations are needed to promote effective adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The aim of this paper is to examine whether Australian young people’s awareness of beyondblue is associated with better recognition of depression and anxiety disorders, and better quality of beliefs about possible interventions and first-aid actions for these problems.Method: In 2011, a telephone interview was conducted with a national sample of 3021 Australians aged between 15 and 25 years. Participants were presented with a vignette portraying depression, depression with suicidal thoughts, social phobia, post-traumatic stress disorder or psychosis in a young person. They were then asked about recognition of the disorder portrayed, their beliefs about the helpfulness or harmfulness of various interventions and first-aid actions, and their awareness of beyondblue. The quality of youths’ beliefs was scored against health professionals’ ratings of the same list of interventions and first-aid actions.Results:Beyondblue awareness was associated with more accurate recognition of the disorder portrayed in all vignettes except social phobia. It was also associated with beliefs about the helpfulness of first-aid actions that were more closely aligned with professional ratings for the depression, psychosis and social phobia vignettes. However, it was associated with beliefs about interventions for the psychosis vignette only.Conclusions: Overall, the associations of beyondblue awareness with better mental health literacy were not specific to depression and anxiety disorders, which are their main focus. Beyondblue awareness is mostly unrelated to treatment beliefs, but seems to have non-specific associations with recognition of disorders and first-aid beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objectives: The aim of this paper is to assess Australian young people’s awareness of mental health services available for their age group. Of particular interest was awareness of headspace, which was created in 2006 to provide youth-oriented mental health services, and has expanded to 30 centres nationally in 5 years.Method: In 2011, a telephone interview was conducted with a national sample of 3021 Australians aged between 15 and 25 years. Participants were asked questions about awareness of mental health organizations, where they would seek help for themselves and how they would assist a peer with a mental health problem.Results: There were very low frequencies of spontaneous mentions of headspace as a mental health organization, or as a service where respondents would seek help for themselves or refer a peer to. However, when prompted, about half of respondents recognized headspace as a mental health organization. Living within a headspace service area predicted better recognition of headspace. However, past-year psychological distress was unrelated to recognition of headspace as a mental health organization.Conclusions: In order to reach them more effectively, young people need to be aware of youth-oriented services that are available to them and their peers. Awareness campaigns need to be targeted to the subgroups of young people who have the greatest need for headspace services, namely those with recent mental health problems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective: This paper reports findings from a national survey on stigmatizing attitudes towards people with depression, anxiety disorders and schizophrenia/psychosis. Method: In 2011 telephone interviews were carried out with 6019 Australians aged 15 or over. Participants were presented with a case vignette describing either depression, depression with suicidal thoughts, early schizophrenia, chronic schizophrenia, social phobia or post-traumatic stress disorder. Questions were asked about stigmatizing attitudes, including perceptions of discrimination, personal and perceived stigma and desire for social distance. Results: Chronic schizophrenia was most likely to be associated with dangerousness, unpredictability and a preference for not employing someone with the problem, while social phobia was most likely to be seen as due to personal weakness. Attitudes concerning dangerousness and social distance were greater in relation to men with mental disorders compared to women. Other people were perceived as more likely to hold stigmatizing attitudes than the respondents reported for themselves. Conclusions: Anti-stigma interventions are more likely to be successful if they focus on individual disorders rather than on 'mental illness' in general. Such interventions may need to address perceptions of social phobia as being due to weakness and those of dangerousness in people with more severe disorders. Such interventions should also focus on bringing beliefs about public perceptions in line with personal beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of this paper was to estimate the degree to which smoke-free facilities may facilitate smoking cessation in smokers with mental illness by estimating the proportion of smokers with mental illness who receive inpatient treatment, their smoking rates and average durations of stay. Method: Smoking and hospitalization rates were estimated from the Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing. Information on duration of inpatient treatment was calculated from the Western Australian Mental Health Information System. Results: Of Australia's estimated 3 567 000 current adult smokers, 32.4% had a mental illness in the past 12 months, and 66.6% had a lifetime mental illness. However, only 1.4% of smokers were hospitalized for a mental health problem in the past 12 months, and 6.3% had ever been hospitalized for a mental health problem. Of those hospitalized for mental health treatment in the past 12 months, 61.2% were current smokers. In 2007 median duration of inpatient mental health admissions was 1 day, and 57% of admissions had duration of 2 days or less. Conclusions: The majority of smokers with mental illness are not treated in inpatient facilities, and where inpatient admissions occur they are generally of short duration. While smoking cessation is an important goal in treatment of smokers with mental illness, support after discharge from inpatient care is important for longer term cessation. Other strategies will be required to support smoking cessation efforts for the majority of smokers with mental illness not in contact with mental health services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]