Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210100391
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$418,228.00
Summary
Reducing Gendered Harm in Involuntary Mental Health Service Provision. Involuntary mental health treatment is often traumatising, with women reporting additional gendered dimensions of harm. Using an action research framework that draws upon the voices of service users, families and professionals, this study aims to develop improved strategies for responding to acute mental distress in women, with a focus on reducing coercion. Expected outcomes include enhanced understandings of the experiences ....Reducing Gendered Harm in Involuntary Mental Health Service Provision. Involuntary mental health treatment is often traumatising, with women reporting additional gendered dimensions of harm. Using an action research framework that draws upon the voices of service users, families and professionals, this study aims to develop improved strategies for responding to acute mental distress in women, with a focus on reducing coercion. Expected outcomes include enhanced understandings of the experiences and impacts of compulsory mental health treatment on women and a co-designed online resource that will support the development of effective, realistic and non-coercive practices in frontline mental healthcare. The project will provide substantial benefits to mental health reform at a national and international level.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE190101382
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$325,000.00
Summary
Optimising digital mental health care: how technology is used in practice. This project aims to develop the first national consensus statement on the use of technology in mental health care in Australia. The project will examine how Australian health practitioners currently use digital therapy programs, and synthesise this data with international evidence and input from Australian government, health service, and digital health experts. This project expects to improve the implementation of digita ....Optimising digital mental health care: how technology is used in practice. This project aims to develop the first national consensus statement on the use of technology in mental health care in Australia. The project will examine how Australian health practitioners currently use digital therapy programs, and synthesise this data with international evidence and input from Australian government, health service, and digital health experts. This project expects to improve the implementation of digital therapy tools using an innovative, theory-driven approach. Expected outcomes of this project include increased and optimal implementation of digital therapy tools among mental health care providers and enhanced capacity within the Australian health system to meet the high demand for services in the community.Read moreRead less
Enhancing wellbeing and resilience within prisons: A psycho-educational approach for the missing middle. Many prisoners experience mental illness and psychological distress, which has been found to relate to repeat offending. Moreover, prison officers also experience high levels of anxiety and distress. This project aims to identify the mental health needs and factors that lead to psychological distress among prisoners and prison officers. Brief intervention programs intend to be developed to ad ....Enhancing wellbeing and resilience within prisons: A psycho-educational approach for the missing middle. Many prisoners experience mental illness and psychological distress, which has been found to relate to repeat offending. Moreover, prison officers also experience high levels of anxiety and distress. This project aims to identify the mental health needs and factors that lead to psychological distress among prisoners and prison officers. Brief intervention programs intend to be developed to address the needs of the ‘missing middle’ (those with elevated levels of distress who are not receiving services). The programs aim to be evaluated to determine whether they are preventing mental health deterioration among participants and whether the results reduce repeat incarceration for prisoners and increase job satisfaction and performance for officers.Read moreRead less
Deakin Family Options: engaging youth with high prevalence mental health problems using family based interventions. Youth depression, anxiety and substance abuse are prevalent, distressing and costly problems impacting one in five young Australians. This collaborative project - called ‘Deakin Family Options’ - will evaluate a family based intervention in order to broaden the therapeutic approaches used for young people and their families.
Changing the lives of young Australians with emotional disorders using a simple three-step treatment based on cognitive-neuroscience insights. Anxiety and depression are emotional disorders that affect many Australian children and place them at risk of lifelong impairment. The latest evidence from cognitive science and neuroscience shows that these children have maladaptive thinking strategies that lead to avoidance and withdrawal. Capitalising on these basic science insights, this project exami ....Changing the lives of young Australians with emotional disorders using a simple three-step treatment based on cognitive-neuroscience insights. Anxiety and depression are emotional disorders that affect many Australian children and place them at risk of lifelong impairment. The latest evidence from cognitive science and neuroscience shows that these children have maladaptive thinking strategies that lead to avoidance and withdrawal. Capitalising on these basic science insights, this project examines a new treatment, referred to as the 'Emotional Flexibility Program', that targets childhood distress in three simple steps over just four weeks of treatment. This treatment could change the way childhood emotional disorders are treated and prevented, improve the quality of life for thousands of young Australians, and offset the associated economic burden of disease.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220101257
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$432,573.00
Summary
Understanding how community characteristics shape suicidal behaviour. This project aims to fill a critical knowledge gap in our understanding of the social determinants that give rise to suicide in Australian communities. Using an innovative, theory-driven approach, this project is expected to establish new insights into what, and how, social and economic inequalities create variation in suicide risk, and illuminate new opportunities for intervention and monitoring. Expected outcomes include evi ....Understanding how community characteristics shape suicidal behaviour. This project aims to fill a critical knowledge gap in our understanding of the social determinants that give rise to suicide in Australian communities. Using an innovative, theory-driven approach, this project is expected to establish new insights into what, and how, social and economic inequalities create variation in suicide risk, and illuminate new opportunities for intervention and monitoring. Expected outcomes include evidence-based policy recommendations for the actions that are likely to be most effective in reducing suicide risk at the population-level. This new knowledge should provide significant benefits in shaping the development of national suicide prevention responses to reduce social and economic disadvantage into the future.Read moreRead less
The future of childhood anxiety treatment: translating cognitive-neuroscience insights into clinical practice. The newest adult anxiety treatments use computer-based tasks that provide practice in overcoming maladaptive thinking patterns. This project is among the first to test this approach with children by developing a simple intervention that can be done at home. This new treatment will significantly reduce the burden of disease in Australia.
Improving Productivity in Emergency Service Personnel. Emergency service personnel experience marked levels of lost productivity, absenteeism, early retirements, and compensation claims as a result of stress reactions. This project aims to improve productivity and reduce compensation costs in emergency service organisations by evaluating a program that reduces stress reactions and increases cognitive functioning in police, firefighters, and paramedics in NSW. An individual program will be admini ....Improving Productivity in Emergency Service Personnel. Emergency service personnel experience marked levels of lost productivity, absenteeism, early retirements, and compensation claims as a result of stress reactions. This project aims to improve productivity and reduce compensation costs in emergency service organisations by evaluating a program that reduces stress reactions and increases cognitive functioning in police, firefighters, and paramedics in NSW. An individual program will be administered to 120 emergency service personnel who have difficulty maintaining their work duties because of stress reactions. Expected outcomes will be reduction in absenteeism, improved productivity, and reduced costs to insurers.
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Cluster randomised controlled trial of a psycho-educational intervention for people with a family history of depression for use in general practice. Many individuals with a family history of depression are concerned about their personal risk for depression. This project will develop and evaluate the first online psycho-educational intervention nationally and internationally targeted to individuals with a family history of depression for use in the general practice setting.
Learning to control fear. This project uses extinction of fear in rats to model means to control human fear. Its aims are to determine why patients must be exposed to trauma-related cues to learn to control their fear and when knowledge about the current relation between the cues and the trauma is sufficient for patients to overcome the fear normally elicited by trauma-related cues.