With COVID-19 continuing to have a telling effect on Australia’s provision of mental health assistance, Flinders University psychiatry and behavioural health experts have made a strong comparative analysis of two digital mental health services in an article published in The Lancet.
Comment from Professor Malcolm Battersby, Professor Michael Baigent and Paula Redpath highlights differences between MindSpot (a Sydney-based initiative) and NewAccess (developed by Beyond Blue and Flinders University) in treating anxiety and depression in primary care.
It coincides with the recent federal budget announcement that $7 million will be provided in 2020/21 to support the mental health and financial wellbeing of small businesses impacted by COVID-19. This will include $4.3 million to provide free, accessible and tailored support for small business owners by expanding Beyond Blue’s NewAccess program in partnership with the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman.
Against this backdrop, the Flinders experts note that in Australia, few people who have clinically significant symptoms seek or successfully connect with some form of intervention.
For the majority of people who registered on MindSpot, a digital and therapist-supported mental health service available to all Australians since December 2012, their main purpose was to take the initial assessment (52·6% of registrants in 2013, increasing to 66·7% in 2019), rather than enrol in a treatment course (42·6% in 2013, decreasing to 26·7% in 2019).
The authors are critical that men, who are three times more at risk of suicide than women in Australia across all age groups older than 15 years, represent less than 30% of MindSpot users.
By comparison, the Australian-designed NewAccess program, based on the UK’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) service, applies social media and advertising strategies to achieve an enrolment rate in men of 40%.
NewAccess currently doesn’t operate in South Australia but it is in 16 of 31 Primary Health Networks across Australia. The new federal funding will enable the influence of this effective program to reach further across the nation, and it represents a completely different approach to health professionals working with small business rather than through the health system.
Professor Baigent oversaw the establishment of NewAccess when he was on the Beyond Blue board, while Professor Battersby won the tender to provide training and supervision for the NewAccess demonstration project – and both are pleased by the new federal funds directed towards the program.
Paula Redpath – who provided training and supervision to some of the 16 current NewAccess programs around Australia – adds that next step is to address the scalability, setting, scarcity, scope and supervision to create a solution that will increase visibility for the NewAccess program.
The full version of The Lancet Article can be accessed here.