Authors: Kathy Bond
Year: 2019
Event: 2019 TheMHS Conference
Subject: Revised Mental Health First Aid Guidelines for Depression
Type of resource: Conference Presentations and Papers
Abstract:
Biography:
Dr Kathy Bond is the Senior Research Officer at Mental Health First Aid Australia and holds an honorary fellowship at the University of Melbourne. She conducts Delphi expert consensus studies that inform MHFA curriculum and conducts pilot evaluations on newly developed courses.
The aim of this presentation is to inform the audience about a recently revised resource called Depression: Mental Health First Aid Guidelines (Revised 2018).
Mental Health First Aid Australia and the University of Melbourne conducted a Delphi study to revise and update the mental health first aid guidelines for depression. The guidelines cover what a person needs to know and do when providing mental health first aid to a person they think might be depressed. The guidelines include:
• Recognising the signs of depression in someone you know.
• Talking to the person about your concerns.
• How to be supportive, including treating the person with respect and dignity, good communication skills, having realistic expectations of the person and giving hope for recovery.
• What to do if you experience difficulties when talking to the person.
• Encouraging the person to seek professional help.
• What to do if the person doesn’t want help.
• What to do if there is risk of harm to the person or others.
This presentation will describe the research methodology used to revise the guidelines (1), summarise the advice given in the guidelines and compare it to the previous version of the guidelines (2).
Learning Objectives
Learning Objective 1 will answer the question: “What is one potential mental health first aid resource for depression?”
Learning Objective 2 will answer the question: “What is a way to systematically use the lived experience voice, alongside the professional voice, when developing first aid resources for depression?”
References
Jorm, AF. (2015). Using the Delphi expert consensus method in mental health research. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 49:887-897.
Langlands, RL, Jorm, AF, Kelly, CM, & Kitchener, BA. (2008). First aid for depression: a Delphi consensus study with consumers, carers and clinicians. Journal of Affective Disorders, 105:157-166.
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