A qualitative exploration of online forums to support resilience of rural young people in Australia.

Introduction: Prevention and early intervention are crucial strategies for improving young people's mental health and well-being. Building resilience is a key component of these strategies, especially among young individuals in rural areas who face well-documented mental health disparities. This study aimed to investigate how online mental health forums can contribute to enhancing individual resilience in young rural users.

Evaluating the impact of skill development for drowning prevention: a relationship-building approach to community engagement.

Objective: Evaluate the impact of a broadened theoretical and empirical model of community engagement aimed at coastal drowning prevention via relationship building between lifeguards and beachgoers through the delivery of skill development sessions on the beach.

Setting: A lifeguard-patrolled beach in Lorne, Victoria, Australia, during the 2023 peak summer holiday season.

Methods: In total, 12 skill development sessions were delivered by teams of lifeguards and risk researchers to beachgoers.

Online Mental Health Forums and Rural Resilience: Mixed Methods Study and Logic Model.

Background: Rural mental health is a growing area of concern internationally, and online mental health forums offer a potential response to addressing service gaps in rural communities.

Objective: The objective of this study was to explore and identify pathways by which online peer support mental health forums help to build resilience for rural residents experiencing mental ill-health by contributing to overcoming their specific contextual challenges.

Methods: We developed a Theoretical Resilience Framework and applied it to 3000 qualitative posts from 3 Australian online mental health forums and to data from 30 interviews with rural forum users.

Awareness without learning: A preliminary study exploring the effects of beachgoer's experiences on risk taking behaviours.

Most drowning deaths on Australian beaches occur in locations not patrolled by lifeguards. At patrolled locations, where lifeguards supervise flagged areas in which beachgoers are encouraged to swim between, the incidence of drowning is reduced. To date, risk prevention practices on coasts focus on patrolled beaches, deploying warning signs at unpatrolled locations with the aim of raising public awareness of risk.

Wellness Impacts of Social Capital Built in Online Peer Support Forums.

The study reported in this paper sought to explore whether and how social capital resources were generated on online peer support mental health forums, and how they were used by rural users to influence mental health outcomes. Interviews with rural users of three Australian online peer support mental health forums were analysed to identify interactions that accessed social capital resources and mental wellness outcomes that flowed from these. Analysis drew on a model of simultaneous building and using of social capital to uncover the nature of the social capital resources present on the forum and how they were built.