Australian Rotary Health

Professor Anthony Jorm is a Professorial Fellow at Orygen Research Centre at the University of Melbourne. His current research focuses on public knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders, and particularly on interventions to improve the public’s helpfulness towards people developing mental disorders. Professor Jorm is the author of 12 books or monographs, over 300 journal articles and over 25 chapters in edited volumes. He has been awarded a Doctor of Science for his research and elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.

He is a member of the Research Committee of Australian Rotary Health. He is a past President of the Australasian Society for Psychiatric Research. He has been listed in ISI HighlyCited.com as one of the most cited researchers in Psychology/Psychiatry of the past 20 years.

SUMMARY OF PROJECT:

E-learning of mental health first aid

To improve the first aid that members of the public provide to people with mental health problems, a 12-hour Mental Health First Aid training course has been developed in Australia and widely disseminated. There are now around 1000 instructors trained in how to provide the Mental Health First Aid course and it is estimated that 80,000 members of the public have completed the course. The course has also spread to a number of other countries: Scotland, Ireland, England, Wales, Finland, Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore. However, despite this uptake, the requirement of 12-hours of face-to-face contact prevents some people from doing the course. One approach which is gaining some evidence of efficacy in these situations is the use of e-learning. Australian Rotary Health has funded a trial to evaluate the effects of Mental Health First Aid training of the public via an e-learning CD compared to either receiving information via a printed manual or receiving no training.

The primary aim is to evaluate the impact on:
 

• mental health literacy
• confidence in providing first aid
• stigmatizing attitudes and
• first aid actions taken to help people with mental health problems
 

A secondary aim is to evaluate the impact of the training on the first aid providers’ mental health.

PROGRESS REPORT:

Professor Anthony Jorm and Betty Kitchener

Mental health first aid training by E-learning: a randomised controlled trial.

The study received ethics approval in June 2008. By August 2008 115 participants had been recruited from the general community and 98 have completed the online pre-study questionnaire that gauges their knowledge, attitudes and behaviours toward people with mental health problems. They have been randomly assigned into groups and sent educational material as follows:
 

Group 1: e-learning CD-ROM (34)
Group 2: Mental Health First Aid Manual (34)
Group 3: Wait List (30)
 

To date 21 participants have completed the post-study questionnaire, which is sent one month after completing the first questionnaire.