Digital Mental Health Musings eMHPrac

“So, I think that was something that added, added some weight to what I was talking about. And also in the session you’re trying to cover so many things, quite often in that 50 minute session, that to give that sort of idea to go away and look at that, to consolidate some of that, or to get a bit more information, or look at it in a different way, because you don’t quite know what people do take away from the conversation that you’re having.”
In our first episode of the new season, respected child and adolescent psychologist Dr Lyn O’Grady talks about her experiences using digital mental health with clients and their families. She shares her tips on when to introduce digital tools and services, what apps to start with, how to help clients get the most out of evidence-based products in sessions and on their own between sessions, and how to be authentic about the digital tools you recommend. 
 
Check out some of the resources we discussed in this episode:
Smiling Mind: https://www.smilingmind.com.au/
Sleep Ninja: https://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/resources-support/digital-tools-apps/sleep-ninja/
BiteBack: https://www.biteback.org.au/
The BRAVE Program: https://brave4you.psy.uq.edu.au/
ReachOut: https://au.reachout.com/
Black Dog Institute Health Professional Resource and Education Hub: https://cop.learning.blackdoginstitute.org.au/#/public-dashboard
eMHPrac Directory: https://www.emhprac.org.au/directory/
Head to Health: https://www.headtohealth.gov.au/
WellMob: https://wellmob.org.au/

In the season final of Digital Mental Health Musings, we take a look at the key moments from our conversations with the experts shaping the mental health landscape in 2023. From AI and chatbots to Australia’s ground-breaking digital mental health safety and quality standards, plus culturally responsive mental healthcare, data protection and privacy, a moderated online social community changing youth mental healthcare, the clinician attitudes and behaviours that support better client experiences with digital mental health, and more, we’ve covered a lot of ground. 

Featuring key moments, analysis and practical tips on integrating digital mental health into practice from across the season all in one place, this episode will help you keep on top of the major developments in digital mental health this year. 

We invite you to listen to the full episodes to learn more and we look forward to joining you in 2024 with more of the latest news in digital mental health. 

“I think that the website works really hard to transmit that information in a way, that encourages people with milder symptoms to give some of these digital resources a go. We know they work but not everybody's using them. They're not being used to the fullest capacity that they could be. So, I think the other side of the coin is encouraging people who have got distress but aren't in this severe group to give digital mental healthcare a go and see if it helps - because often it will.”

When Australia's national mental health navigation service, Head to Health, set themselves the challenge of making it easier for people to find and connect with the best mental health services for their needs - they listened to more than 350 Australians working and living in the mental health sector. They gathered insights and expertise to help co-design their new website in a bid to connect a fragmented mental health landscape in a way that would empower people to find and reach out for the mental health resources and services that could help them take care of their mental health and wellbeing.

In this episode of Digital Mental Health Musings Dr Tania McMahon talks to the Head to Health team about their award-winning new website – how the site works for clients and health professionals and the research and evidence behind it. We also share some great practical tips about how health professionals can use the site in their everyday practice to help support their clients. 

Check out some of the resources we discussed in this episode:
Head to Health: https://www.headtohealth.gov.au/
Read more about the new website features: https://bit.ly/3Rhz67C
Read more about Link-me: https://bit.ly/3uCysZK

Contact Head to Health and share your thoughts on the site: https://bit.ly/47snXXe

The rapid rise of AI has prompted some crucial questions about its use in the mental health setting: what are the privacy implications of sharing sensitive information to chatbots? How is that data being tracked across these platforms, how is it being stored and protected – and are chatbots bound by the same professional standards as a human therapist?  
In this episode of Digital Mental Health Musings, we chat to renowned socio-legal researcher Dr Piers Gooding about the legal and ethical challenges surrounding the use of chatbots and AI in mental health – what we should be cautious about, what we can learn from cases across health systems from around the world, and what existing legal and regulatory frameworks we can apply in the assessment of the tools.

Check out some of the resources we discussed in this episode:
Read more of Dr Piers Gooding's work here: https://law.unimelb.edu.au/about/staff/piers-gooding
Watch our episode about the Digital Mental Health Safety and Quality Standards: https://www.emhprac.org.au/resource/s3e2/

“What I wanted to understand is what is the on-the-ground evidence, what is the everyday experience of clinicians who are using digital tools in their practice? And on the other side, what’s getting in the way of clinicians being able to effectively use these sorts of tools in their practice?”

In this episode of Digital Mental Health Musings we talk to Dr Farrer about what she has learned about how clinicians responded to the implementation of telehealth through the qualitative survey responses of more than 500 mental health practitioners. We talk about what those findings can reveal about the adoption and roll out of digital mental health more broadly and the types of clinician attitudes and perceptions that can lead to greater engagement and integration of digital mental health in the clinical setting to optimise its use in the community. 

Dr Farrer also explains how clinician knowledge and attitudes around digital mental health can play a powerful role in who gets to access mental health. 

Check out some of the resources we discussed in this episode:
Moodgym: https://moodgym.com.au/
eCouch: https://ecouch.com.au/
Telehealth use by mental health professionals during COVID-19: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35360958/
The Factors Associated with Telehealth Use and Avoidance During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Longitudinal Survey: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36649254/
Read more of Dr Lou Farrer's publications here: https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/farrer-lm#publications

Contact Dr Farrer and register your interest in participating in her research by emailing  louse.farrer@anu.edu.au.

“It’s a big problem, even in face-to-face care, that people drop out after a few sessions and don’t engage in treatment for long enough to get the benefits of therapy, says head of research at Orygen Digital, Associate Professor Shane Cross.

In this episode of Digital Mental Health Musings, we talk to Professor Cross and Savanah Whieldon, Orygen Digital’s Queensland Peer Work Coordinator, about the inspiring work that led to MOST (Moderated Online Social Therapy). It’s a platform that has been co-designed with young people and brings together a multi-disciplinary team of youth mental health experts, computer programmers, health informer experts, a web designer, writer, and graphic designer to transform youth mental health through digital technology.

In this conversation we chat about how health professionals can use MOST to support young people while they're waiting for care, to expand on their face-to-face sessions once they are in care, and to use after discharge from a service. We also delve into the research behind MOST, who the service is best suited to, what young people have to say about the service and we take a look at the platform’s safety systems that allow potentially risky content to be flagged, reviewed and acted upon with evidence-based clinical interventions.

MOST is available through selected headspace and state-based specialist services across Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales and the ACT. 

Learn more about Orygen Digital at: https://www.orygen.org.au/Our-Research/Research-Areas/Orygen-Digital

Learn more about MOST at: https://most.org.au/