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Background: Transitioning from psychiatric hospitalisation back to community presents a period of heightened suicide, homelessness, relapse, and rehospitalisation risk. The Australian state of New South Wales established a state-wide Peer Supported Transfer of Care (Peer-STOC) initiative to enhance recovery-focused supports available during this transition period., Aims: To understand the impacts and outcomes of the Peer-STOC program on service users from three stakeholder perspectives: service users themselves, peer worker service providers, and other mental health workers and clinicians interfacing with the program., Methods: Qualitative data from 82 questionnaires and 58 individual in-depth interviews were analysed thematically using constant comparative methods and an iterative and inductive process., Results: All stakeholders described positive impacts and outcomes of the program for service users. These included: (a) a better, less traumatic inpatient experience; (b) felt understood, cared about and less alone; (c) easier to leave hospital; (d) easier to get back into life and daily routines; (e) built and re-established community connections; (f) gained new knowledge, strategies, and skills; and (g) felt more hopeful about my recovery., Conclusions: The Peer-STOC program had a positive impact. It enhanced people's experience in hospital, eased their transition from hospital and assisted with people recovering community-based relationships, activities, and routines.

Objective: To test the effectiveness of a male-targeted upstream public health intervention in increasing help-seeking intentions for mental disorders and suicide in an adolescent population., Method: A two-arm controlled trial was conducted with 10 schools in the Australian Capital Territory. A total of 594 male adolescents aged between 16 and 18 years participated in the study. Participants in the intervention condition received the single session Silence is Deadly program, while participants in the control condition completed usual classes. All participants completed a pre-intervention, post-intervention, and a 6- to 12-week follow-up survey assessing help-seeking intentions, attitudes, and behaviors., Results: At follow-up, the Silence is Deadly program was found to significantly increase help-seeking intentions from friends, which was in line with the program's messaging to seek help from and provide support to friends in times of distress or suicide risk. The program did not have an effect on help-seeking intentions for other sources of help or on help-seeking attitudes and behavior., Conclusions: The present study provides preliminary support for male-targeted public health interventions for suicide that use male-focused norming and role modeling to improve help-seeking in this population., (© 2020 American Association of Suicidology.)

Objectives: The aim of this scoping review was to map and synthesise peer-reviewed literature reporting on the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme and psychosocial disability., Method: The review followed the rigorous and systematic protocol of Arksey and O'Malley. Five databases were searched and, using strict inclusion and exclusion criteria, publications were identified for inclusion. Data were extracted from publications, tabulated and graphically presented. A qualitative analysis was also completed., Results: Twenty-eight publications were included. While a wide range of issues were covered across this literature, only eight publications specifically focused on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Almost half of publications were only author commentary without analysis of external data. There were no evaluations and a paucity of publications documenting the lived experiences of people with psychosocial disability or their families. Qualitative analysis identified 59 separate themes. These were grouped using a modified strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats framework. While it was acknowledged that the Scheme has the capacity to enrich people's lives and enhance service integration, themes relating to weakness and threats dominated within this literature. These included a variety of existing or predicted problems such as poor integration of a recovery philosophy into the National Disability Insurance Scheme, complex application processes creating barriers to access, concern for those ineligible or not accessing the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the need to ensure National Disability Insurance Scheme plans address specific, changing participant needs and that services will be available to provide required supports., Conclusion: Given the significant impact of the National Disability Insurance Scheme on the lives of individuals and the wider mental health service system, there continues to be surprisingly limited peer-reviewed literature reporting on experiences and outcomes of the Scheme for people living with psychosocial disability. Future research examining outcomes and shedding light on National Disability Insurance Scheme experiences of people with psychosocial disability and their families are particularly important for ongoing development and evaluation of the Scheme.

General practice care plans are designed to improve the management of chronic illness, facilitating multidisciplinary care and enabling GPs and consumers to work collaboratively. Evidence suggests that they work well for chronic physical illnesses, but it is unclear if they operate as intended for people with mental disorders. The aims of this study were to: (1) compare rates of creation and review of GP care plans for mental disorders and type II diabetes; and (2) examine consumer experiences. Secondary analysis of 109589 recorded encounters from a national cross-sectional study in Australian general practice (2006-16) demonstrated that encounters involving creation of a care plan for depression or anxiety were significantly higher than those for diabetes, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Rates of review were commensurate with creation of plans for diabetes, but not for mental disorders. Eighteen people with a GP care plan completed an online survey about their experiences, reporting that care plans facilitated access to allied health professionals, but did not improve the quality of care they received. Findings suggest that care plans are underutilised for people with low prevalence mental disorders, and while they offer financial benefits to consumers, they may not result in ongoing, collaborative care.

Consumer and carer involvement in mental health research is a growing and developing field. Whilst there has been policy and in-principle support for such involvement from governments around the world, lived experience researchers conducting academic research in partnership with other consumers and carers remains uncommon., Acacia: The Australian Capital Territory Consumer and Carer Mental Health Research Unit is based at The Australian National University and employs academic researchers with lived experience to undertake research directly relevant to the needs of mental health consumers and carers with the aim of influencing policy and practice. In this study, we share our experience of developing and conducting research within ACACIA to provide a model for meaningfully engaging mental health consumers and carers throughout the research process., (© 2018 Australian College of Mental Health Nurses Inc.)

Partners in Recovery (PIR) is a nation-wide Australian program designed to improve coordinated care for people with severe and persistent mental health problems. This study evaluated PIR's effectiveness for individual and system-level outcomes. A total of 25 PIR participants (male = 7, female = 15, not stated = 3) provided data for the evaluation of the program across six community mental health service providers in Canberra, Australia. Individual-level measures included quality of life, social inclusion, and perceptions of recovery. System-level individual measures included confidence in the health system, perceptions of organisation of care, and network analyses. Global single-item scores were measured at baseline (retrospectively), midpoint, and endpoint. Scaled scores for quality of life and social inclusion were measured at midpoint and endpoint only. Multi-level fixed effect models demonstrated significant improvements in global quality of life (p = .008), social inclusion (p = .025), perceptions of recovery (p < .001), and confidence in the health system (p = .013) from baseline to endpoint. Mean scaled scores did not improve from midpoint to endpoint. Two network analyses demonstrated the central role of the support facilitator. This study provides preliminary evidence for increasing quality of life, level of social inclusion, and perceptions of recovery for people with severe mental illness and complex needs., (Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

General practice has an important role within the Australian healthcare system to provide access to care and effective management of chronic health conditions. However, people with serious mental illness experience challenges associated with service access. The current paper seeks to examine drivers of access to general practice for people with common and serious mental disorders, compared with people who access care for type II diabetes, a common physical health problem managed in general practice. The Bettering the Evaluation and Care of Health (BEACH) programme provides the most comprehensive and objective measurement of general practitioner activity in Australia. Using BEACH data, this study compared general practice encounters for depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and type II diabetes during a 10-year period between 2006 and 2016. Analysis revealed more frequent encounters for depression compared to anxiety, and a higher representation of women in encounters for bipolar disorder compared to men. The relationship between number of encounters and patient age was strongly associated with the life course and mortality characteristics associated with each disorder. The findings highlight specific challenges associated with access to primary care for people with serious mental illness, and suggest areas of focus to improve the ability of these patients to access and navigate the health system., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Background: Young men are consistently less likely to seek help for mental health problems than their female peers. This is particularly concerning given the high rates of suicide among male adolescents. The school system has been identified as an ideal setting for the implementation of prevention and early intervention programs for young people. The current trial aims to determine the effectiveness of the Silence is Deadly program in increasing positive help-seeking intentions for mental health problems and suicide among male secondary school students., Methods: This study is a two-arm, cluster-randomised, controlled trial that will compare the Silence is Deadly program to a wait-list control condition. Eight Australian high schools will be recruited to the trial, with male students in grades 11 and 12 (16 to 18 years of age) targeted for participation. The program is an innovative male-tailored suicide prevention intervention, comprising a presentation that emphasises role-modelling and legitimises help-seeking for personal and emotional problems, and a brief video that features celebrity athletes who counter existing male norms around help-seeking and encourage communication about personal and emotional issues. The program also includes a discussion of how to help a friend in distress and ends with a question and answer session. The primary outcome measure for the current study is help-seeking intentions. Secondary outcomes include help-seeking behaviour, help-seeking attitudes, help-seeking stigma, mental health symptoms, and suicidal ideation. Data will be collected pre-intervention, post-intervention, and at 3-month follow-up. Primary analyses will compare changes in help-seeking intentions for the intervention condition relative to the wait-list control condition using mixed-effects repeated-measures analyses that account for clustering within schools., Discussion: If proven to be effective, this targeted help-seeking intervention for adolescent males, which is currently only delivered in one jurisdiction, could be more widely delivered in Australian high schools. The Silence is Deadly program has the potential to significantly contribute to the mental health of young men in Australia by improving help-seeking for suicidality and mental health problems, allowing this population to better access treatment and support sooner., Trial Registration: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, ACTRN12617000658314 . Registered on 8 May 2017.