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There is growing recognition of the importance of addressing the mental health needs of young people attending university. Anonymous, scalable, and evidence-based online interventions can help to reduce burden on university services and increase access to care for marginalised or disconnected students. This paper reports the participatory design methods used to develop the Uni Virtual Clinic (UVC), a comprehensive online programme that was designed to prevent and treat mental health problems and related issues in university students. Data evaluating the participatory design process is also presented. The potential for the implementation of the UVC within university-based counselling services is strong, and has potential to reduce the prevalence of mental disorders in a high-risk group of young people.

Internet interventions for common mental disorders are widely available, effective, and economical, yet community uptake remains low. One consistently cited reason for not engaging in mental health interventions is lack of time. This research examined whether lack of time as a rationale for not using online interventions reflects real time scarcity, and whether time availability impacts intention to use interventions. A nationally representative sample (N = 1094, 51% women) reported their time use in activity categories for a typical week. Participants rated their acceptance and likelihood of use of mental health internet interventions, and completed mental health symptom, help-seeking and stigma measures. Amount of leisure time reported by participants was not associated with acceptance or likelihood of use of internet interventions for mental health. However, respondents who worked longer hours ranked time and effort factors as more influential in their intention to use internet-based mental health programs. Younger respondents and those with greater help-seeking attitudes reported higher acceptance of use. These findings suggest lack of time is not a direct barrier to use of internet interventions, and that perceived time scarcity may be masking real barriers to uptake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BackgroundSelf-guided web-based mental health programs are effective in treating and preventing mental health problems. However, current engagement with these programs in the community is suboptimal, and there is limited evidence indicating how to increase the use of existing evidence-based programs. ObjectiveThis study aims to investigate the views of people with lived experience of depression and anxiety on factors influencing their engagement with self-guided web-based mental health (e–mental health) programs and to use these perspectives to develop an engagement-facilitation intervention (EFI) to increase engagement (defined as both uptake and adherence) with these programs. MethodsA total of 24 community members (female=21; male=3) with lived experience of depression and anxiety or depression or anxiety alone participated in 1 of 4 focus groups discussing the factors influencing their engagement with self-guided e–mental health programs and the appearance, delivery mode, and functionality of content for the proposed EFI. A subsequent evaluation survey of the focus group participants (n=14) was conducted to evaluate the resultant draft EFI. Data were thematically analyzed using both inductive and deductive qualitative methods. ResultsParticipants suggested that the critical component of an EFI was information that would challenge personal barriers to engagement, including receiving personalized symptom feedback, information regarding the program’s content or effectiveness and data security, and normalization of using e–mental health programs (eg, testimonials). Reminders, rewards, feedback about progress, and coaching were all mentioned as facilitating adherence. ConclusionsEFIs have the potential to improve community uptake of e–mental health programs. They should focus on providing information on the content and effectiveness of e–mental health programs and normalizing their use. Given that the sample comprised predominantly young females, this study may not be generalizable to other population groups. There is a strong value in involving people with a lived experience in the design and development of EFIs to maximize their effectiveness.

Objective: To examine and describe telehealth use and attitudes among mental health professionals in Australia and New Zealand during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Participants completed a brief online survey between May and July 2020. Participants were recruited via peak and professional organisations and through psychology-focused social media groups and networks. The survey examined frequency of telehealth use, reasons for non-use, telehealth modalities, prior use, attitudes towards use, plans for future use, and training, information or resource needs. Results: A total of 528 professionals (85.2% female) participated in the survey, of which 98.9% reported using telehealth and 32.2% reported using telehealth exclusively. Respondents were less likely to use telehealth if they worked with clients experiencing complex issues (e.g. trauma), had more hours of weekly client contact, had a choice about whether to use telehealth or felt less positive about using technology. Respondents were more likely to hold positive views towards telehealth if they were female, had used online programmes with clients previously, were frequent telehealth users and were comfortable using technology. Participants expressed mixed views on client safety and the impact of telehealth on therapeutic process and effectiveness. Conclusion: Telehealth has a clear and ongoing role within mental healthcare and there is a need for strong guidance for professionals on how to manage client risk, privacy, security and adapt therapy for delivery via telehealth. In particular, there is a need for individual-, organisational-, professional- and policy-level responses to ensure that telehealth remains a viable and effective healthcare medium into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The present study examined behavioral responses during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the role of dispositional risk tolerance in the Australian context. Method: The study involved a six-wave longitudinal investigation with a nationally representative sample of Australians (N = 1,296). Dispositional risk tolerance was measured at Wave 1 and participants' anxiety level and self-report implementation of 10 COVID actions was assessed in each wave. Autoregressive multinomial regression models were estimated to assess the unique contribution of risk tolerance to the longitudinal change of participants' implementation of COVID actions. Results: The results revealed a high implementation rate for protective actions when Australia had a peak in the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequently declined with the easing threat of the pandemic. Individuals' dispositional risk tolerance significantly predicted transition to, and endorsement of, protective actions. Participants who had low risk tolerance were more likely to remain at the state of implementing COVID-19 measures than being in, or transitioning to, other states. Conclusions: The findings suggest that when encouraging protective actions, governments and public authorities should acknowledge variability in the community in responding to risk and consider measures in addition to risk messaging to encourage protective actions among individuals with a high level of risk tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]