Cultural considerations when providing mental health first aid to Iraqi refugees with mental health problems: evaluation of the guidelines

Mental health first aid is the help provided to a person developing a mental health problem or in a mental health crisis, until appropriate professional help is received or until the crisis resolves. Mental health first aid strategies are taught through guidelines and in training courses developed and conducted by Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) Australia. MHFA is a multi-award winning program developed in 2000 by Betty Kitchener and Professor Tony Jorm with the aim to improve the mental health literacy of members of the Australian community.

The program has solid evidence for its impact from many research studies. For more information click here https://mhfa.com.au/research/mhfa-course-evaluations

In order to improve the quality of the mental health first aid techniques being taught to the public in our courses, MHFA Australia and researchers in the Mental Health Literacy Research Team lead by Professor Tony Jorm (now the Population Mental Health Group at the University of Melbourne) have developed guidelines on what constitutes best practice first aid, as informed by expert consensus (i.e., consensus-based guidelines). MHFA Course curriculum in face to face and eLearning is based on these guidelines. View all published research on MHFA Course development (i.e., MHFA Guidelines development) here https://mhfa.com.au/research/mhfa-australia-course-development

The purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of downloading the cultural considerations on how to provide mental health first aid to an Iraqi refugee with mental health problems guidelines.

This research is being conducted by a research team from the School of Medicine, Western Sydney University and the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, and Mental Health First Aid Australia, a not-for-profit company. 

What will I be asked to do?

To track the impact of the cultural considerations guidelines, you will be asked to complete questionnaires just after downloading the guidelines and one month after downloading the guidelines. The questionnaires will be completed online and it is estimated that the first will take around 5 minutes to complete. The second survey will take about 20 minutes.

All information provided when responding to the questionnaires is confidential. All results from the questionnaires will be published in the form of group percentages and not individual responses. The information provided by participants will be stored electronically and held under password protection, for a minimum period of 5 years. The data will not be used for any purposes other than those described here. A link to each questionnaire will be sent to your email address individually.

The findings of this research will be published in a scientific journal, on the mental health first aid website (www.mhfa.com.au) and in training materials for adults. Results may also be presented and discussed at local, national and international conferences on mental health first aid or cross-cultural research.