Redevelopment of mental health first aid guidelines for substance use problems: a Delphi study
Open accessAbstract
Background: Substance use problems have a major impact on the physical and mental health of individuals, families and communities. Early intervention may have a positive effect on recovery and treatment outcomes for those with substance use problems, reducing related risk and harm. Separate mental health first aid guidelines on how a member of the public could assist someone experiencing or developing alcohol use and drug use problems in high income Western countries were developed using Delphi expert consensus in 2009 and 2011, respectively. This study aimed to synthesise and update these two original guidelines to reflect current evidence and best practice. Methods: The Delphi expert consensus method was used to determine the inclusion of statements in the redeveloped guidelines. A questionnaire was developed using previously endorsed helping statements from the original guidelines on alcohol and drug use problems, as well as relevant content identified in systematic searches of academic and grey literature. Three panels of experts (people with lived experience, support people and professionals) rated statements over three consecutive online survey rounds to determine the importance of their inclusion in the guidelines. Statements endorsed by at least 80% of each panel were included. Results: 103 panellists completed all three survey rounds. They rated 469 statements and endorsed 300 of these for inclusion in the redeveloped guidelines. Conclusions: This study has developed a broader and more comprehensive set of guidelines for how to support a person experiencing or developing a substance use problem. The redeveloped guidelines provide more detail on knowledge about and recognition of substance use problems, approaching and assisting people who want to change or are not ready to change, harm reduction, community-based supports and professional help, but have less on physical first aid actions. Mental Health First Aid International will use these guidelines in future updates of their training courses.
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Before conducting the study, the authors chose a threshold that required ≥80% of experts to endorse a statement as Essential or Important, on the basis of ≥80% being a commonly employed threshold in mental health research and to be consistent with Delphi studies conducted by three independent ISBD Task Forces.
“Before conducting the study, we chose a threshold that required ≥ 80% of experts to endorse a statement as Essential or Important, on the basis of ≥ 80% being a commonly employed threshold in mental health research [47, 48, 49], and to be consistent with Delphi studies conducted by three independent ISBD Task Forces [50, 51, 52].”
From Essential Information About Chronobiology and Chronotherapy for the Optimal Care of People With Bipolar Disorders: An Expert Consensus (2026) · cites this paper as [48]
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- [6]Glantz MD Bharat C Degenhardt L Sampson NA Scott KM Lim CC Al-Hamzawi A Alonso J Andrade LH Cardoso G De Girolamo G The epidemiology of alcohol use disorders cross-nationally: findings from the World Mental Health surveys Addict Behav 2020 102 106128 10.1016/j.addbeh.2019.106128 31865172 PMC7416527 · DOI · Paper page
Cited by
Sorted by citations
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- Authors
- Wright, J., Chalmers, K. J., Rossetto, A., Reavley, N. J., Kelly, C. M., & Jorm, A. F.
- Affiliations
- The University of Melbourne (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Wright, Judith
- ORCID
- Venue
- BMC Psychology
- Published
- 2024-02-13
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 70-70
- ISSN
- 2050-7283 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC10865545
- OpenAlex
- W4391786664
- Cited by
- 2
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1
- FWCI
- 0.61
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- BMC Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Minerva Access (University of Melbourne) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Opioid Use Disorder Treatment
- Keywords
- mental health first aid, problematic substance use, alcohol use problems, drug use problems, early intervention, harm reduction, community-based support, professional help, expert consensus, guideline development, people with lived experience
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Delphi Technique, Female, First Aid, Humans, Male, Mental Health, Middle Aged, Surveys and Questionnaires, Practice Guidelines as Topic, Substance-Related Disorders, Consensus
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