The impact of COVID-19 on community mental health: lessons learned from Tasmania, Australia.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on community mental health globally and widened pre-existing health and social inequities. Tasmania, Australia has one of the highest rates of mental ill health and socioeconomic disadvantage in the country. Whilst Tasmania experienced a delayed and reduced physical presence of COVID-19 compared to other states and territories, mental health impacts remain.

Targeted community-based programmes for children's mental health: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the Australian literature.

Objective: No synthesis of the Australian evidence regarding targeted prevention and early intervention for mental health concerns among young children exists. This review aimed to (1) describe the types of targeted community-based mental health programmes evaluated in Australia to support children aged 1-9 years exhibiting internalising and/or externalising symptoms and (2) examine their impact on children's internalising and externalising symptoms and disorder diagnosis.

Method: A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted (PROSPERO: CRD42021255257).

Evaluating the implementation of Cradle to Kinder: An intensive home-visitation support program for families experiencing disadvantage.

Background: The Australian evidence supporting the effectiveness of home visitation programs for families experiencing disdavantage is mixed. These inconsistent findings could be attributed to the varied ways in which home visitation programs are implemented, and a lack of evaluation.

Objective: This qualitative paper explores the barriers and facilitators to the implementation of Cradle to Kinder - a long-term, intensive, home visitation family support program for vulnerable young caregivers at risk of child removal across Victoria, Australia.

The effect of My Health Record use in the emergency department on clinician-assessed patient care: results from a survey.

Background: The emergency department has been a major focus for the implementation of Australia's national electronic health record, known as My Health Record. However, the association between use of My Health Record in the emergency department setting and patient care is largely unknown. The aim of this study was to explore the perspectives of emergency department clinicians regarding My Health Record use frequency, the benefits of My Health Record use (with a focus on patient care) and the barriers to use.

The Impact of Community Mental Health Programs for Australian Youth: A Systematic Review.

Australia has undergone significant youth mental health reform over the past 10 years, leading to numerous studies examining the effects of community-based mental health care programs for Australian youth. However, no synthesis of this literature currently exists. Therefore, this systematic review aimed to: (1) describe the types of community-based mental health programs that have been delivered to Australian youth in the past 10 years; and (2) examine their impact in improving young people's mental health symptomology and psychosocial functioning.

Residential Out-of-Home Care Staff Perceptions of Implementing a Trauma-Informed Approach: The Sanctuary Model.

The aim of this study was to explore and better understand the enablers and barriers of implementation and how these impact on the organisational successes and challenges of adopting The Sanctuary Model, as perceived by residential care staff. Following ethics approval, three semi-structured interviews and six focus groups were conducted with residential care staff between February and July, 2020. Participants identified a number of enablers, presented in the subthemes: (a) social support systems and resources; (b) shared trauma-informed knowledge and understanding; and (c) leadership and champions.

MacKillop Family Services' Family Preservation and Reunification Response for Vulnerable Families-Protocol for an Effectiveness-Implementation Study.

International evidence supports the effect of intensive family preservation and reunification services in preventing children's placement in out-of-home care (OOHC). Evidence within Australia is scarce. This protocol paper describes a hybrid effectiveness-implementation evaluation of the Victorian Family Preservation and Reunification (FPR) Response implemented by MacKillop Family Services.

Patient and clinician perspectives of factors that influence the delivery of alcohol brief interventions in Australian primary care: a qualitative descriptive study.

Background: Brief interventions (BIs) delivered in primary care can reduce harmful alcohol consumption. Yet, clinicians do not routinely offer BIs to reduce harmful alcohol use.

Objective: We explored the perspectives of clinicians and patients about the use of alcohol BIs during consultations in Australian primary care.

Embedding brief interventions for alcohol in general practice: a study protocol for the REACH Project feasibility trial.

Background: Alcohol is a major source of harm in Australia that disproportionately affects low-income communities. Alcohol brief interventions (ABIs) combine an assessment of a person's alcohol use with advice to reduce health risks. Despite their effectiveness, ABIs are not routinely performed by clinicians.

Economic evaluation methods used in home-visiting interventions: A systematic search and review.

Home-visiting interventions are used to improve outcomes for families experiencing disadvantage. As scarce resources must be allocated carefully, appropriate methods are required to provide accurate information on the effect of these programmes. We aimed to investigate: economic evaluation/analysis methods used in home-visiting programmes for children, young people and families, study designs and methods suitable in situations where randomised-controlled-trials are not feasible, and type of costs included in analyses, including any implementation costs stated.

MyCare study: protocol for a controlled trial evaluating the effect of a community-based intervention on psychosocial, clinical outcomes and hospital admission rates for adults with severe mental illness.

Introduction: People with serious mental illness (SMI) often fail to receive adequate treatment. To provide a higher level of support, mental health systems have been reformed substantially to integrate mental healthcare into the community. MyCare is one such community-based mental health model of care.

Mobile Apps to Reduce Tobacco, Alcohol, and Illicit Drug Use: Systematic Review of the First Decade.

Background: Mobile apps for problematic substance use have the potential to bypass common barriers to treatment seeking. Ten years following the release of the first app targeting problematic tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug use, their effectiveness, use, and acceptability remains unclear.

Objective: This study aims to conduct a systematic literature review of trials evaluating mobile app interventions for problematic tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug use.

The Effectiveness of Transition Interventions to Support Older Patients From Hospital to Home: A Systematic Scoping Review.

Background: Interventions supporting older adults' transition from hospital to home can address geriatric needs. Yet this evidence base is fragmented. This review describes transitional interventions that provide pre- and post-discharge support for older adults and evaluates their implementation and effectiveness in improving health and well-being.

Health Outcomes and Healthcare Efficiencies Associated with the Use of Electronic Health Records in Hospital Emergency Departments: a Systematic Review.

Healthcare organisations and governments have invested heavily in electronic health records in anticipation that they will deliver improved health outcomes for consumers and efficiencies across emergency departments. Despite such investment, electronic health records designed to support emergency care have been poorly evaluated. Given the accelerated development and adoption of information technology across healthcare, it is timely that a systematic review of this evidence base is updated in order to drive improvements to design, interoperability and overall clinical utility of electronic health record systems implemented in emergency departments.

Effect of community mental health care programs in Australia: a systematic review.

Although numerous studies have examined the effects of community-based mental health care programs in Australia, no synthesis of this literature exists. This systematic review of peer-reviewed and grey literature described the types of community-based mental health care programs delivered and evaluated in Australia in the past 20 years, and evaluated their impact in improving outcomes for those with a serious mental illness (SMI). Articles were included if they evaluated the extent to which the programs delivered in Australia improved individual outcomes, including hospitalisations, psychiatric symptoms, substance misuse or psychosocial outcomes, for individuals with an SMI.

Psychosocial volunteer support for older adults with cognitive impairment: development of MyCare Ageing using a codesign approach via action research.

Background And Objectives: Older adults with cognitive impairment are vulnerable to frequent hospital admissions and emergency department presentations. The aim of this study was to use a codesign approach to develop MyCare Ageing, a programme that will train volunteers to provide psychosocial support to older people with dementia and/or delirium in hospital and at home when discharged from hospital.

Setting: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Program description and implementation findings of MyCare: enhancing community mental health care in Tasmania, Australia.

Since 2014, Tasmania has experienced unprecedented rates of hospitalisations related to mental health issues. To address reliance on such acute-based care, government funding was invested to enhance community-based care, which, in turn, led to the development of MyCare. This paper represents the initial phase of a larger body of work (i.

Volunteer Programs Supporting People With Dementia/Delirium in Hospital: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Background And Objectives: Volunteer-delivered programs to assist people with dementia and/or delirium in-hospital can provide person-centered one-on-one support in addition to usual care. These programs could mitigate hospital resource demands; however, their effectiveness is unknown. This review evaluated literature of volunteer programs in acute hospital settings for people living with dementia and/or delirium.

Clinical leadership development in Australian healthcare: a systematic review.

Despite clear priority and high costs of leadership capability programmes in healthcare, and significant investments into improving clinical leadership, there remains a prominent gap around evidence of effectiveness or impact on patient outcomes in Australia. We aimed to conduct a systematic review on postgraduate clinical leadership programmes to gather learnings on the processes, theoretical underpinnings, and impact of such programmes for medical and other health professionals. Our search included empirical, peer-reviewed evaluations of Australian clinical leadership development programmes published between November 2008 and March 2019 and yielded 3284 records.

Interventions and practice models for improving health and psychosocial outcomes of children and young people in out-of-home care: protocol for a systematic review.

Introduction: Children and young people placed in out-of-home care (OoHC) are often affected by a history of trauma and adverse childhood experiences. Trauma in early childhood can impact on children's health and psychosocial development, whereas early interventions can improve children's development and placement stability. Although several interventions and practice models have been developed to improve health and psychosocial outcomes for children and young people in OoHC, there remains a lack of rigorous research examining the impact of these interventions in OoHC settings, as there are no systematic reviews examining the impact these interventions and practice models have on the children and young people they serve.

Ecological momentary assessment of drinking in young adults: An investigation into social context, affect and motives.

Introduction: Daily assessment studies have examined how day specific factors, such as affect, social context, and drinking motives, alongside dispositional drinking motives, predict young adults' drinking. However, these studies did not examine how the interplay between drinking motives (dispositional and day specific) and multiple features of the drinking situation predict drinking with respect to either the initial decision to drink or the quantity of alcohol consumed. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) via smartphone technology, enables us to address this gap by evaluating to what extent dispositional drinking motives and day specific factors are associated with: a) the initiation of drinking episodes and; b) the quantity of alcohol consumed.

Delivering Personalized Protective Behavioral Drinking Strategies via a Smartphone Intervention: a Pilot Study.

Background: Smartphone-based interventions are a potentially effective way to minimize alcohol-related harm in young adult, non-dependent drinkers. This pilot study is the first to evaluate the benefits and feasibility of a personalized alcohol harm-minimization intervention delivered via smartphones.

Methods: Within a single-blind, randomized controlled design, 45 young adults were randomly assigned to either the intervention app (n = 25; 18 females; M = 21.

Understanding problematic eating in out-of-home care: The role of attachment and emotion regulation.

Children living in Out-of-Home Care (OoHC) are thought to be especially vulnerable to developing problematic eating behaviours due to their likelihood of having insecure attachment styles and emotion regulation deficits. Despite this increased risk, our understanding of problematic eating among children in OoHC is limited. Therefore, this study aimed to; (1) Explore the rate of problematic eating behaviours among children living in OoHC, specifically residential and foster care; (2) Investigate how carers manage problematic eating and (3) Understand carers' perceptions of the role of attachment and emotion regulation in relation to problematic eating in OoHC.

A Mobile App-Based Intervention for Depression: End-User and Expert Usability Testing Study.

Background: Despite the growing number of mental health apps available for smartphones, the perceived usability of these apps from the perspectives of end users or health care experts has rarely been reported. This information is vital, particularly for self-guided mHealth interventions, as perceptions of navigability and quality of content are likely to impact participant engagement and treatment compliance.

Objective: The aim of this study was to conduct a usability evaluation of a personalized, self-guided, app-based intervention for depression.

Dissociation between wanting and liking for alcohol and caffeine: A test of the Incentive Sensitisation Theory.

Limited human studies have directly tested the dissociation between wanting and liking with human substance users, a core tenet of the Incentive Sensitisation Theory (IST). The aim of this study is to test the dissociation between wanting and liking in humans across two commonly used licit substances, alcohol and caffeine. The STRAP-R (Sensitivity To Reinforcement of Addictive and other Primary Rewards) questionnaire was administered to 285 alcohol users (mean age=33.