Mental Health First Aid Guidelines Project
A project is underway to produce guidelines for first aid for a range of developing mental disorders and mental health crisis situations. These guidelines are being produced using the Delphi method, which a systematic way of assessing the consensus of a panel of experts. The guidelines consist of first aid actions that have been rated as important or essential by expert panels of professionals, consumers and carers. So far, the following guidelines have been produced:
- Depression: Guidelines & Article
- Suicidal thoughts and behaviours: Guidelines & Article
- Psychosis: Guidelines & Article
- Panic attacks: Guidelines
- Non-suicidal self injury : Guidelines & Article
- Adult trauma: Guidelines
- Child trauma: Guidelines
- Eating disorders: Guidelines
- Problem drinking: Guidelines
- Problem cannabis use: Guidelines
Future guidelines are planned to cover:
- Problem drug use
Mental Health First Aid Guidelines for Other Cultures
The above guidelines have been developed for use in developed English-speaking countries. They may not be applicable in other cultures or with minority cultures within developed English-speaking countries. Projects are underway to develop guidelines that can be applied in other cultural groups. The following guidelines are currently available:
Guidelines for providing Mental Health First Aid to an Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Person
The following guidelines are currently available to be downloaded from this webpage or to be ordered from beyondblue for free. Order form from beyondblue.
- MHFA Guidelines for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples – Cultural Considerations: Guidelines
- MHFA Guidelines for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples - Depression: Guidelines
- MHFA Guidelines for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples - Psychosis: Guidelines
- MHFA Guidelines for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples - Suicide: Guidelines
- MHFA Guidelines for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples - Trauma and Loss: Guidelines
- MHFA Guidelines for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples - Problem drinking: Guidelines
Guidelines for providing Mental Health First Aid in other Countries
- MHFA Guidelines for Psychosis in Spanish (Guía de primeros auxilios) translated by Gertrudis Sada: Guidelines
- MHFA Guidelines for Suicide in India, Philippines and Japan. These guidelines were developed using the same method as the international guidelines described above. However, they were developed using only one panel of experts from each country (clinicians). They may not be suitable for use in all settings within the country they were developed for. They were not designed to be useful for helping people born in these countries who are now living elsewhere (for example, those who have migrated to western countries).
- MHFA Guidelines for Psychosis in Asian countries: Guidelines & Article. Once again, these guidelines were developed using the same method as the others, but with only one panel. The panel involved in developing these guidelines were mental health clinicians from a large number of Asian countries. They may not be suitable for use in all settings and contexts. They were not designed to be useful for helping people born in Asia who are now living elsewhere (for example, those who have migrated to western countries).