Cited by 118Mental Health Treatment and AccessSchool Health and Nursing EducationSuicide and Self-Harm Studies

‘teen Mental Health First Aid’: a description of the program and an initial evaluation

Open access
Hart, Laura M., Mason, Robert J., Kelly, Claire M., Cvetkovski, Stefan, Jorm, Anthony F.·2016·International Journal of Mental Health Systems

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Many adolescents have poor mental health literacy, stigmatising attitudes towards people with mental illness, and lack skills in providing optimal Mental Health First Aid to peers. These could be improved with training to facilitate better social support and increase appropriate help-seeking among adolescents with emerging mental health problems. teen Mental Health First Aid (teen MHFA), a new initiative of Mental Health First Aid International, is a 3 × 75 min classroom based training program for students aged 15-18 years. METHODS: An uncontrolled pilot of the teen MHFA course was undertaken to examine the feasibility of providing the program in Australian secondary schools, to test relevant measures of student knowledge, attitudes and behaviours, and to provide initial evidence of program effects. RESULTS: Across four schools, 988 students received the teen MHFA program. 520 students with a mean age of 16 years completed the baseline questionnaire, 345 completed the post-test and 241 completed the three-month follow-up. Statistically significant improvements were found in mental health literacy, confidence in providing Mental Health First Aid to a peer, help-seeking intentions and student mental health, while stigmatising attitudes significantly reduced. CONCLUSIONS: teen MHFA appears to be an effective and feasible program for training high school students in Mental Health First Aid techniques. Further research is required with a randomized controlled design to elucidate the causal role of the program in the changes observed.

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  • School administration issues, the difficulty of obtaining parental consent and attrition rates for the follow-up measures were one of the main difficulties regarding the implementation.

    “School administration issues, the difficulty of obtaining parental consent and attrition rates for the follow-up measures were one of the main difficulties regarding the implementation [93, 97, 102, 115].”

    From What are the barriers, facilitators and interventions targeting help-seeking behaviours for common mental health problems in adolescents? A systematic review (2020) · cites this paper as [102]

    The Results (Participant flow; page unavailable) report that only 61% of eligible students had parental consent for the evaluation and that follow-up attrition was high. The Discussion (Limitations; page unavailable) calls participant drop-out a major limitation. The paper does not identify school administration issues or difficulty obtaining parental consent as main implementation problems; the consent and attrition figures concern evaluation participation. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Two of the six classroom-based stigma interventions used psychoeducation to overcome myths regarding mental illness.

    “Six classroom-based interventions addressing stigma were identified, two of which used psychoeducation to overcome myths regarding mental illness [101, 102] and four focused on providing interpersonal contact with people with mental health conditions in order to improve acceptance and increase help-seeking intentions [103–106].”

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Authors
Hart, L. M., Mason, R. J., Kelly, C. M., Cvetkovski, S., & Jorm, A. F.
Affiliations
  • The University of Melbourne (AU)
  • Deakin University (AU)
Corresponding author
Jorm, Anthony F.
Venue
International Journal of Mental Health Systems
Published
2016-01-19
Volume
10
Issue
1
Pages
3-3
ISSN
1752-4458 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2105757610
Cited by
118
References
95
Citations by year
2026: 7 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 4 · 2014: 1
FWCI
16.77
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • International Journal of Mental Health Systems (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Minerva Access (University of Melbourne) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • La Trobe University (cc-by)
Funders
  • beyondblue
  • National Health and Medical Research Council (1059785)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Speech and Hearing › School Health and Nursing Education
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Suicide and Self-Harm Studies
Keywords
mental health first aid training, adolescents, mental health literacy, mental health stigma, help-seeking intentions, peer support, high school students, program feasibility, student mental health

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