Choosing the Best Digital Mental Health Tools for Patients
Written by Clinical Psychologist Tania McMahon
Digital Mental Health tools and resources are becoming an increasingly important part of our mental health system. They provide effective, evidence-based intervention for patients with mild-to-moderate mental health symptoms, and they can be a fantastic option for patients who experience barriers to accessing face-to-face psychological care (e.g. finances, location, stigma).
However, with a huge selection of digital mental health tools available (e.g. there are an estimated 1400+ mental health apps on the app store), health practitioners face the challenging task of finding and selecting suitable tools for patients on platforms that lack regulation or reliable quality assurance (e.g. the star-rating system on the app store is easily exploited).
A major concern of many practitioners is the quality of the interventions provided by these digital services, as well as concerns about privacy and data security of highly sensitive information. To help address this, the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care is undertaking a project to develop national safety and quality standards and a certification framework for digital mental health services. The goal of certification of services is to increase user confidence, increase usage and increase consumer choice in digital mental health services.
With this certification framework still a little while off, the onus is currently on health practitioners and users to individually assess the quality of digital mental health services. While this can feel like an overwhelming task, it doesn’t have to be! Here are a few helpful options, including questions you can ask and steps you can take to help make the right decision:
For Apps – use the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS)
- Researchers at QUT have developed and validated the world’s first known mental health app quality rating tool (the MARS), to provide a multidimensional measure of the quality of each app. The indicators include engagement, functionality, aesthetics, information quality, and app subjective quality.
- More information about the MARS (including a free download of the tool) is available here.
For all other services (e.g. websites, online programs)
- Is it user-friendly and engaging?
- Is it easy to navigate and use? Is information easy to find?
- Is it engaging and pleasant to use?
- Is the information clearly communicated?
- Will users want to access it enough to get the full benefit?
- Is the content clinically safe?
- There should be transparency about who owns the service and what the funding sources are (so that you can identify any conflicts of interest).
- There should be transparency about how the content was developed and by whom (e.g. through university research or a government grant, and what the expertise of the content developers is). Services developed by government-funded bodies and institutions are likely to be the most reliable in terms of content and efficacy. Check out Head to Health for a searchable index of Australian, government-funded digital mental health services.
- There should be some evidence as to the efficacy of the service - ideally a Randomised-Controlled Trial or other evaluative process. However, if not (as RCTs can be difficult to fund), digital adaptations of well-established efficacious treatment interventions (e.g. CBT) can generally be considered effective as long as the treatment is clearly communicated (i.e. something that claims to be online CBT clearly appears to be).
- Are there any treatment elements that could cause harm?
- There should be options for at-risk users to self-identify and seek further help (e.g. a ‘Get Help Now’ button that leads to Crisis Line information).
- If there are health professionals involved in the delivery of the service (e.g. conducting telephone assessments, moderating online forums), do they have appropriate qualifications?
- Does it protect privacy and is it secure?
- Is the site secure?
- There should be clear information about how personal data is used and protected.
- The service should have a privacy policy stating that user information is not sold on to third parties.
To get started in your search for helpful digital mental health services, begin here:
- Check out the Australian government’s ‘Head to Health’ digital mental health gateway - https://headtohealth.gov.au.
- Search for some relevant services and try out one or two for yourself; evaluate them using the questions above (or the MARS, if it is an app).
- See if they would be suitable for your clients – if so, great! If not, head back to Head to Health and search for another.
Why doesn’t mindfulness work for me?
“Be in the moment.” “Clear your mind.” “Centre yourself.”
I remember feeling rather confused when I first learned about mindfulness as a provisional psychologist. It was so abstract and nebulous – an idea that I just couldn’t grasp as tangibly as behavioural strategies like pleasant […]
Latest Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders in Adults
Anxiety disorders are common, chronic mental disorders, with one in seven adults suffering from an anxiety disorder in any year. Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is the most prevalent anxiety disorder, followed by Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) then Panic/Agoraphobia. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists […]
APS White Paper
As many of you are aware, there is a major review of MBS services underway. The Australian Psychological Society has just released their vision for how MBS items should be remodelled as part of the present reforms. This information will be particularly interesting to psychologists but I also encourage those with the ability to refer for psychological services also to understand the APS stance on this issue.
These recommendations can be summarised as follows:
Highlights
- Child sessions to be reimbursable even if the child is not in the room. This is consistent with
evidence-based practice to work primarily with parents in many disorders.
- Specialist assessment items for Neuropsychologists and Educational and Developmental
Psychologists
- Restrictions for group psychology sessions to be loosened to encourage more group therapy
- Expansion of telehealth items to include people whose barriers to attendance are not geographical
- Invest in infrastructure to collect outcome data (more on this later)
- Item for case conferencing to encourage collaboration
Two treatment pathways
Standard pathway will be 10 + 10 sessions. The plus ten will be entirely reliant upon outcome measurement (psychometric or functional)
The Big 5 pathway 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 sessions for disorders where substantial clinical and economic evidence exists that greater treatment dosage is required, this pathway is only open to those with an Area of Practice Endorsement;
- Psychotic Disorders
- Borderline Personality Disorder
- Eating Disorder
- Conduct Disorder
- Treatment-resistant Depression
Obviously, there is a lot more detail in the document, which I would encourage people to read. The APS invested in getting KPMG to do extensive economic modeling for us to both show that this model will only be marginally more expensive than what we have currently, and also to look at the downstream savings associated with treating mental illness properly.
Help! My teen has self-harmed. What do I do?
Finding out your teen is self-harming can be frightening. You may feel overwhelmed and ill-equipped to handle the situation, fearing you might make it worse. Finding out more about why teens self-harm and how to help them manage their intense emotions can be useful.
Self-harm - The facts:
- Self-harm is defined as intentional harming of one’s body without suicidal intent. It is usually done in places not visible to others.
- Approximately 12% of young people have engaged in self-harm previously.
Why do young people self-harm?
- To cope with an intense emotion
- To punish themselves if they feel guilty
- To try and replace emotional pain with physical pain
- To feel ‘something’, ‘anything’ if they feel numb, disconnected or alone
- To feel in control
- To express they need help
Signs someone may be self-harming:
- Wearing long sleeved clothing in warm weather
- Isolating themselves and withdrawing
- Scratches, cuts, bruises, scars with inconsistent explanations
How is self-harm and a suicide attempt different?
- Most young people self-harm as a coping mechanism, rather than to attempt to end their life.
- However, people who self-harm are also more likely than the general population to feel suicidal and to attempt suicide.
How do I tell the difference?
- Just ask - if you notice your teen is engaging in self-harm, ask them if they have thoughts about suicide. If they are, take them to a GP and psychologist for assessment and support.
- Experts agree that asking and talking about suicide does not make someone feel worse or ‘put the idea in their head’ – rather it provides relief.
What to say:
- Ask – have they been self-harming, what has been going on, how are they feeling about it, what are they thinking, what have they thought about what they could do.
- Then listen – you do not need to give advice or fix anything, unless they ask for it.
- Acknowledge their feelings - don’t minimise or tell them not to feel a certain way.
- Keep your reactions in check – if you feel scared, shocked, angry or blame yourself – breathe slowly and deeply, relax any tense muscles and get back to listening and acknowledging their feelings. If you react they may be less likely to communicate with you in future. Find other parents to connect with and discuss this and get your own support.
- Admit you may react or say something unhelpful. Admit you don’t have the answer. Tell them despite this, you care, you are there, you want to help.
What to do:
1. Get them to talk or express their emotions in other ways.
Whether to you, a friend, other family member, doctor or psychologist, teens need to express and make sense of their emotions. Ways to express emotion include:
-
- Talking
- Writing/journaling
- Singing
- Drawing
- Painting
3. Teach them alternate ways of coping with intense emotions.
Here are some ideas:
- Take a cold shower
- Hold an ice cube
- Draw on their skin on their area they have an urge to harm
- Intense exercise: push ups, star jumps, running
- Stretching
- Rip up paper
- Pop bubble wrap
- Deep, slow breathing
- Play a game
2. Build their resilience.
Young people build resilience through a sense of belonging. Help them to a join a group they may be interested in:
- Team sport
- Volunteering
- Part-time job
- Take up a new course
- Book club
- Chess club
4. Spend quality time with them
- Do something they love with them: play a game, sing karaoke, go to a skate park, shoot some basketball hoops. Teens equate quality time with being valuable and worthy of someone else’s time and attention. This builds self-esteem and ability to cope.
Where to get help:
- Parentline
- Free confidential telephone support for parents
- 1300 30 1300
- Free confidential telephone support for parents
- Calm Harm
- Smartphone app to help manage self-harm urges
- headspace
- Free telephone counselling for youth aged 12-25
- 1800 650 890
- 9am-1am
- Free face-to-face individual and group counselling with GP referral
- Free telephone counselling for youth aged 12-25
Make your vote count for mental health in the upcoming election
By Dr Aaron Frost, Clinical Psychologist and Director
In a little over two weeks, Australia heads to the polls to elect a new Federal parliament. There are a lot of issues in play, but for those of you interested in mental health we have a guide of what the big issues are, and where each party stands on each.
Before looking at the politics, let’s start by outlining the key issues.
- Australia’s suicide rate has recently spiked upward
- There is a bed shortage for patients with acute and severe mental health conditions
- People in rural and remote areas, low socioeconomic areas and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have low rates of access to treatment
- The burden of disease for mental illness represents around 4% of GDP
- Almost half of our mental health spending is “downstream”, ie: for dealing with the consequences of poor mental health (homelessness, welfare, criminal justice etc).
- Australia’s “spend” on mental health is low by OECD standards
So good policy would do the following
- Have some plan to reduce suicide rates
- Increase mental health beds for patients with acute and severe conditions
- Increase access to disadvantaged groups (rural and remote, low SES, Indigenous Australians)
- Look to reduce the burden of disease by increasing treatment availability and effectiveness
Currently there are a number of existing programs that receive the majority of funding in order to achieve the above goals. No party appears to be committing to any out of the box overhaul of these systems or any significant funding increases, so therefore it is useful to consider what these programs are and where they fit into the picture.
National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) - exists to provide long-term inclusive support for people with permanent disabilities. While many people with mental illnesses make full or partial recoveries, permanent disability is exactly how the needs of many should be viewed. However, currently the NDIS appears to have a poor understanding of mental health issues, and a general fear of opening up the program to mental illness as it risks blowing out an already stretched budget.
↣ Needs - Directing some additional funding into the NDIS to deal with psychosocial disability is almost a prerequisite of good policy.
Primary Health Networks (PHNs) - were developed to allow regional differentiation in health coordination, on the assumption that the needs of one area may be different from the needs of another. While the PHNs do not provide treatment directly, they do receive substantial funding, which they can then use to purchase treatment services based on the needs of their local community. While decentralisation has been a huge step forward in terms of regional differentiation, significant questions have been raised about the capacity of all of these regional boards to develop competent financial and clinical governance. Large administrative overheads, both for the PHNs and then the agencies they tender work out to is proving to cost more and deliver less to treatment.
↣ Needs - Good policy in this space would probably see a commitment to improved governance for the PHNs (simply rebranding them from Medicare Locals is not enough). Additional resources directed to the PHNs without such improved governance risks achieving very little other than blowing out a bureaucracy.
Headspace - Strives to increase access for youth. Their accessible centres are designed to be youth friendly and inclusive. They have been modelled on the centre for excellence in youth mental health treatment in Parkville Victoria (Orygen). However, recent evaluations have suggested that Headspace has struggled to “scale up”, meaning that while some of their centres are providing excellent services, many of them are underperforming, and outcomes have been underwhelming.
↣ Needs - Headspace funding needs to be assured. The short-term funding arrangements that have defined its recent history are damaging to long term sustainability. However, Headspace also needs support in delivering on its promise. Simply examping the model does not address the underlying problems.
Better Access - This is the program introduced in 2006 whereby GPs can refer directly to psychological treatment services and clients can receive a medicare rebate. This program has been a huge success in terms of increasing patient access (almost doubling over ten years), however the only evaluation done on this program in 2011 was very limited in scope and does not really provide assurance that increased access has led to increased outcomes. A recent review by Lee & Frost published in MJA found that Better Access had reduced the rates of those suffering high levels of psychological distress, but that the session cap introduced in 2011 had decreased the program effectiveness.
This article can be accessed here - https://psychology-training.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/lee-and-frost-2019-public-domain.pdf
↣ Needs - Better Access needs session limits increased or scrapped. There is no evidence that increasing session limits would cost more money as the workforce is stable (there are no additional psychologists left to do additional work), and increased session limits would allow this program to deliver support to clients with greater needs without risking their mental health by treatment disruption. At the same time, money needs to be invested in the evaluation of this program.
Web based platforms - There are a number of hubs that have formed nationally whereby organisations have been funded to collate apps, websites, phone counselling services and other treatment that can be delivered at almost zero cost. These programs are understandably popular, both for their ongoing running costs, as well as their ability to reach people in regional and remote areas such as a teen who might be 100km away from the nearest GP, let alone a psychiatrist or psychologist. However, web based platforms have yet to crack the drop-out problem, with research suggesting that in some programs as many as 90% of people do not return after their first interaction with the website.
↣ Needs - More funding dedicated to basic research. These programs are promising, and will definitely have a place in the treatment mix of the future. However, until the dropout problem is improved markedly they are not yet ready to be considered frontline treatment resources.
Public Hospitals - As the graph below shows, in 1992 public psychiatric facilities used to make up 46% of total mental health spending, but it has dropped and has been relatively stable at around 12% since 2010. Australia now has 39 psychiatric beds per 100,000 of population, compared to an OECD average of 68. No one is calling for a return to the bad old days of the asylum, but perhaps there is a bit of wiggle room between 39:100,000 and 68:100,000 to add a few more beds around the place. However this is expensive, both in terms of capital expense and in terms of running these facilities. Big dollars require state and federal co-operation, which has been in pretty short supply in my observation of COAG meetings.
What are the parties proposing?
From my reading of the policy documents, none of the major parties are offering any out of the box solutions to the problems suggested above. None are committing to increased expenditure (and no I don't consider expenditure commitments made with a commencement date of over a decade to be anything other than wishful thinking), and none are offering any money to be spent in ways that are substantially more innovative than the programs listed above.
Seeing both Health Minister Greg Hunt, and Shadow Health Minister Catherine King debate at the National Press Club last week, it appears both had subscribed to the ‘dog ate my homework’ school of policy development. Both said little, agreed to listen to experts and quickly pivoted to other topics
The Australian Greens policy paper in mental health was light on details and heavy on ideals and principles, but I did note a commitment to funding the NDIS to be able to provide services to those with a mental health disability. While this is not the answer to all of the problems outlined above, it is certainly a step toward a more inclusive and less disabled life for those with severe mental health issues.
I also noted a recent ALP announcement that the NDIS funding would be increased and assured by putting aside money into the future fund to ensure there is money to meet its long term needs. This is the only serious attempt I have seen to consider how the fund will be sustainable in the long term. The LNP announced on budget night that the NDIS was already fully funded, but the growth rates used in their economic modelling seemed so optimistic as to be fanciful.
In terms of specific details -
The Australian Labor Party - Their policy document has a lot of language around ‘regional’ driven policy, which I am interpreting as code for increased funding of the PHNs. I am happy to be corrected on this, but my interpretation is that the ALP plans to put more resources into the PHNs in the hope that they will figure out how to solve local problems region by region. There does not appear to be a plan to overcome the governance limitations of the PHNs. This has the potential to be both costly and ineffective. The ALP has also committed to a target of reducing suicide by 50% in the next ten years. This is an admirable goal, however the detail of how to do this are somewhat unclear. It seems that they will be relying on the PHNs, and possibly another layer of regional structure to seek out and implement best practice solutions. Without more detail it is impossible to comment on this.
The Liberal National Party - The LNP made a commitment in the budget to a massive expansion of Headspace services. These will be extended to an adult version of Headspace, and the total number of centres will triple. This commitment was costed at $111 Million. There is no detail of the minutiae of how this injection of funds will be used to deal with the patchy performance of some centres during an expansion phase that will be tripling their reach. The LNP has aso committed money to trying to tackle suicide within Aboriginal and/ or Torres Strait Islander peoples, and importantly this money is to be managed and used by the communities in need. While this doesn’t address the wider issue of suicide, this group of Australians are disproportionately represented in the suicide statistics, and the LNP are to be commended for this commitment.
One Nation Party - I was unable to find any specific One Nation mental health policies. However, there was one policy designed to deal with the “Ice Epidemic”. It involved life sentences for high level drug dealers, and empowering parents to institutionalised children regardless of age in specially built rehabilitation centres if they are addicted to Ice.
Palmer United Party - I was unable to find current information. However, at the last election, they stood for increasing mental health funding by $4 billion dollars, and Indigenous health services funding by $5 Billion. No details of how the money would be used were available.
(EDIT: I hadn't realised Clive Palmer had now rebranded his part as “United Australia Party”, who do not appear to have a mental health policy, but have a health policy that is similar to their 2013 mental health policy. They commit to an $80 Billion dollar injection into the health system. There were no details of what that $80 Billion would be spent on, and given that the only other economic policy of note was cutting taxes and raising the pension, it is hard to see how it will be funded, but I will leave economists to comment on that aspect.)
Overall - Unless there are significant announcements in the wings it does not look like any party is committed to a serious attempt at tackling the needs of the mental health sector. Throwing more money into current systems and changing their funding mix slightly is unlikely to achieve any of the key goals of good policy. Both the ALP and LNP are committing to outsourcing more of the problems to the PHNs and Headspace respectively, both of which are systems that hold great promise but are struggling with substantial teething problems. The Greens probably have the most optimistic message and goals, however being so light on detail it is hard to give unqualified support for their platform either.
However you choose to vote on 18th May, make it count and enjoy your democracy sausage.
Burn Out
by Dr Julieta Castellini
We generally don’t wake up, one day to the next, feeling burnt out. Burn out is a gradual, insidious process. We often miss the somewhat vague warning signs, putting these down to feeling tired or just having “one of those weeks”. It’s often not until we’ve fully hit burn out station, or we have it pointed out to us by partners, family, friends or colleagues, that we recognise how depleted we are.
At a societal level, there is increasing pressure to do more and work harder, both at work and at home. We work harder and do more, and in the end lose touch with what happening for us, how we are feeling and our capacity.
I’ve heard of burn out, but what is it?
Burn out is the cumulative reaction to ongoing life stressors. It tends to occur when the resources we have (such as time and energy) are lost or not enough to meet all the demands we have at hand, or when our inputs don’t result in the output we had hoped for. Some factors that lead to a higher risk of burn out are uncertainty, stressful events, heavy workload and pressure.
Signs or indicators of burn out are:
- feeling overwhelmed or unappreciated
- cynicism or frustration
- emotional exhaustion
- avoiding or withdrawing
- less commitment to activities, i.e. doing the bare minimum
- feeling less satisfied
- taking more time off
- sense of ineffectiveness or failure
- changes in attention or concentration
- increased use of alcohol, drugs or TV/social media
- changes in sleep or appetite
Many of us will experience some of these signs at one point in time or another, which may be completely unrelated to burn out. However if you are finding that these symptoms are ongoing or you are experiencing several of these, you may be burning out.
What can I do to manage burn out?
If you’ve gotten this far and you’re thinking, “help, I’m burnt out!!”, here are some things you can do to not only address burn out, but also take steps towards preventing it.
- Good eating, sleeping and exercise routine. If you can, try to aim for 3 to 5 meals per day, about 8 hours sleep a night and a 10 to 20 minute walk per day
- Saying “no” if you do not have capacity. If it’s hard to say “no”, try saying “maybe” and give yourself the time to think about whether you have capacity or not
- Give yourself breaks between demands or activities, and have some “quarantined time off “ each week, even if just for an hour
- Try to find a balance across the different areas of your life, you are not going to be able to give 100% to each area and that is totally ok
- Write out the things that are stressing you out. Make a note of the ones that are urgent or important (i.e. will this matter when I’m 85?) and which ones can be postponed or delegated to others
- Reconnect with your passions, the enjoyable activities that fulfil you
- Socialise with friends
- Use mindfulness based apps (such as Smiling Mind or Headspace) to focus more on the present, the right here and now, rather than the future or the past
If you are finding that your symptoms are significantly impacting on your relationships, work or other life areas, or you would like some support with managing burn out, check in with your GP and you may discuss whether seeing a psychologist could be worthwhile. You might also be able to access a psychologist through your workplace under an Employee Assistance Program.
Working with: The Existential Crisis
by Tessa Hall
Of the many reasons clients are referred for psychological therapy, anxiety in some form is by far the most common. While treatments like CBT are very effective in helping clients understand and manage their symptoms at a very functional and practical level, sometimes a reflection on the […]
Helping children (and ourselves) respond to Media coverage of difficult events
There has been a plethora of difficult news stories to hit our screens recently: from child abuse involving high profile, previously well regarded alleged perpetrators to mass violence resulting in multiple deaths. While the media can help to inform and educate, it can unfortunately […]