ORCID Profile
0000-0003-0155-1202
Current Organisation
UNSW Sydney
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In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Health Information Systems (incl. Surveillance) | Medical Devices | Software Engineering | Computer Software
Behaviour and Health | Integrated Circuits and Devices | Application Software Packages (excl. Computer Games) |
Publisher: JMIR Publications Inc.
Date: 15-05-2022
DOI: 10.2196/12892
Publisher: JMIR Publications Inc.
Date: 16-09-2021
DOI: 10.2196/28369
Abstract: Digital mental health interventions stand to play a critical role in managing the mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, enhancing their uptake is a key priority. General practitioners (GPs) are well positioned to facilitate access to digital interventions, but tools that assist GPs in identifying suitable patients are lacking. This study aims to evaluate the suitability of a web-based mental health screening and treatment recommendation tool (StepCare) for improving the identification of anxiety and depression in general practice and, subsequently, uptake of digital mental health interventions. StepCare screens patients for symptoms of depression (9-item Patient Health Questionnaire) and anxiety (7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale) in the GP waiting room. It provides GPs with stepped treatment recommendations that include digital mental health interventions for patients with mild to moderate symptoms. Patients (N=5138) from 85 general practices across Australia were invited to participate in screening. Screening identified depressive or anxious symptoms in 43.09% (1428/3314) of patients (one-quarter were previously unidentified or untreated). The majority (300/335, 89.6%) of previously unidentified or untreated patients had mild to moderate symptoms and were candidates for digital mental health interventions. Although less than half were prescribed a digital intervention by their GP, when a digital intervention was prescribed, more than two-thirds of patients reported using it. Implementing web-based mental health screening in general practices can provide important opportunities for GPs to improve the identification of symptoms of mental illness and increase patient access to digital mental health interventions. Although GPs prescribed digital interventions less frequently than in-person psychotherapy or medication, the promising rates of uptake by GP-referred patients suggest that GPs can play a critical role in ch ioning digital interventions and maximizing the associated benefits.
Publisher: JMIR Publications Inc.
Date: 11-2021
Abstract: he COVID-19 pandemic has placed health care workers (HCWs) under severe stress, compounded by barriers to seeking mental health support among HCWs. The Essential Network (TEN) is a blend of digital and person-to-person (blended care) mental health support services for HCWs, funded by the Australian Federal Department of Health as part of their national COVID-19 response strategy. TEN is designed as both a preventative measure and treatment for common mental health problems faced by HCWs. New blended services need to demonstrate improvements in mental health symptoms and test acceptability in their target audience, as well as review implementation strategies to improve engagement. he primary objective of this implementation study is to design and test an implementation strategy to improve uptake of TEN. The secondary objectives are examining the acceptability of TEN among HCWs, changes in mental health outcomes associated with the use of TEN, and reductions in mental health stigma among HCWs following the use of TEN. he implementation study contains 3 components: (1) a consultation study with up to 39 stakeholders or researchers with implementation experience to design an implementation strategy, (1) a longitudinal observational study of at least 105 HCWs to examine the acceptability of TEN and the effectiveness of TEN at 1 and 6 months in improving mental health (as assessed by the Distress Questionnaire [DQ-5], Patient Health Questionnaire [PHQ-9], Generalized Anxiety Disorder [GAD-7], Oldenburg Burnout Inventory [OBI-16], and Work and Social Adjustment Scale [WSAS]) and reducing mental health stigma (the Endorsed and Anticipated Stigma Inventory [EASI]), and (3) an implementation study where TEN service uptake analytics will be examined for 3 months before and after the introduction of the implementation strategy. he implementation strategy, designed with input from the consultation and observational studies, is expected to lead to an increased number of unique visits to the TEN website in the 3 months following the introduction of the implementation strategy. The observational study is expected to observe high service acceptability. Moderate improvements to general mental health (DQ-5, WSAS) and a reduction in workplace- and treatment-related mental health stigma (EASI) between the baseline and 1-month time points are expected. EN is a first-of-a-kind blended mental health service available to Australian HCWs. The results of this project have the potential to inform the implementation and development of blended care mental health services, as well as how such services can be effectively implemented during a crisis. ERR1-10.2196/34601
Publisher: JMIR Publications Inc.
Date: 24-02-2021
DOI: 10.2196/25870
Abstract: In Australia, secondary school educators are well positioned to recognize mental illness among students and provide support. However, many report that they lack the knowledge and confidence to do so, and few mental health training programs available for educators are evidence based. To address this gap, the Black Dog Institute (BDI) developed a web-based training program (Building Educators’ Skills in Adolescent Mental Health [BEAM]) that aims to improve mental health knowledge, confidence, and helping behaviors among secondary school educators in leadership positions. A pilot study of the training program found it to be positively associated with increased confidence and helping behaviors among educators and reduced personal psychological distress. An adequately powered randomized controlled trial (RCT) is needed. The primary objective of this cluster RCT is to evaluate the effectiveness of the BEAM program for improving educators’ confidence in managing student mental health. The trial will also evaluate the effect of the BEAM program in increasing educators’ frequency of providing help to students and improving their mental health knowledge and reducing educators’ psychological distress and stigma toward students with mental health issues. The target s le size is 234 educators from 47 secondary schools across New South Wales, Australia. Four waves of recruitment and enrollment into the trial are planned. Schools will participate in one wave only and will be randomized to the intervention or waitlist control conditions. Participants from the same school will be assigned to the same condition. Assessments will be conducted at baseline, posttest (10 weeks after baseline), and follow-up (22 weeks after baseline) using the BDI eHealth research platform. Intervention participants will receive access to the BEAM program for 10 weeks upon completion of baseline, and the control condition will receive access for 10 weeks upon completion of the follow-up assessment. Recruitment for this trial began on July 21, 2020, with the first baseline assessments occurring on August 17, 2020. To date, 295 participants from 71 schools have completed baseline. Due to the unexpected success of recruitment in the first 3 waves, the final fourth wave has been abandoned. Intervention participants are currently receiving the program, with follow-up due for completion in March 2021. This is one of the first RCTs to examine the effectiveness of a web-based adolescent mental health training program for Australian secondary school educators in leadership positions. If found to be effective, this training program will offer a sustainable and scalable delivery method for upskilling educators in caring for students’ mental health. Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12620000876998 tudies/crs-14669208 DERR1-10.2196/25870
Publisher: Geological Society of America
Date: 02-04-2021
DOI: 10.1130/GES02247.1
Abstract: Continental sedimentation was widespread across the Central Anatolian Plateau in Miocene–Pliocene time, during the early stages of plateau uplift. Today, however, most sediment produced on the plateau is dispersed by a well-integrated drainage and released into surrounding marine depocenters. Residual long-term (106–107 yr) sediment storage on the plateau is now restricted to a few closed catchments. Lacustrine sedimentation was widespread in the Miocene–Pliocene depocenters. Today, it is also restricted to the residual closed catchments. The present-day association of closed catchments, long-term sediment storage, and lacustrine sedimentation suggests that the Miocene–Pliocene sedimentation also occurred in closed catchments. The termination of sedimentation across the plateau would therefore mark the opening of these closed catchments, their integration, and the formation of the present-day drainage. By combining newly dated volcanic markers with previously dated sedimentary sequences, we show that this drainage integration occurred remarkably rapidly, within 1.5 m.y., at the turn of the Pliocene. The evolution of stream incision documented by these markers and newly obtained 10Be erosion rates allow us to discriminate the respective contributions of three potential processes to drainage integration, namely, the capture of closed catchments by rivers draining the outer slopes of the plateau, the overflow of closed lakes, and the avulsion of closed catchments. Along the southern plateau margin, rivers draining the southern slope of the Central Anatolian Plateau expanded into the plateau interior however, only a small amount of drainage integration was achieved by this process. Instead, avulsion and/or overflow between closed catchments achieved most of the integration, and these top-down processes left a distinctive sedimentary signal in the form of terminal lacustrine limestone sequences. In the absence of substantial regional climate wetting during the early Pliocene, we propose that two major tectonic events triggered drainage integration, separately or in tandem: the uplift of the Central Anatolian Plateau and the tectonic completion of the Anatolian microplate. Higher surface uplift of the eastern Central Anatolian Plateau relative to the western Central Anatolian Plateau promoted more positive water balances in the eastern catchments, higher water discharge, and larger sediment fluxes. Overflow/avulsion in some of the eastern catchments triggered a chain of avulsions and/or overflows, sparking sweeping integration across the plateau. Around 5 Ma, the inception of the full escape of the Anatolian microplate led to the disruption of the plateau surface by normal and strike-slip faults. Fault scarps partitioned large catchments fed by widely averaged sediment and water influxes into smaller catchments with more contrasted water balances and sediment fluxes. The evolution of the Central Anatolian Plateau shows that top-down processes of integration can outcompete erosion of outer plateau slopes to reintegrate plateau interior drainages, and this is overlooked in current models, in which drainage evolution is dominated by bottom-up integration. Top-down integration has the advantage that it can be driven by more subtle changes in climatic and tectonic boundary conditions than bottom-up integration.
Publisher: JMIR Publications Inc.
Date: 09-03-2022
DOI: 10.2196/34601
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has placed health care workers (HCWs) under severe stress, compounded by barriers to seeking mental health support among HCWs. The Essential Network (TEN) is a blend of digital and person-to-person (blended care) mental health support services for HCWs, funded by the Australian Federal Department of Health as part of their national COVID-19 response strategy. TEN is designed as both a preventative measure and treatment for common mental health problems faced by HCWs. New blended services need to demonstrate improvements in mental health symptoms and test acceptability in their target audience, as well as review implementation strategies to improve engagement. The primary objective of this implementation study is to design and test an implementation strategy to improve uptake of TEN. The secondary objectives are examining the acceptability of TEN among HCWs, changes in mental health outcomes associated with the use of TEN, and reductions in mental health stigma among HCWs following the use of TEN. The implementation study contains 3 components: (1) a consultation study with up to 39 stakeholders or researchers with implementation experience to design an implementation strategy, (1) a longitudinal observational study of at least 105 HCWs to examine the acceptability of TEN and the effectiveness of TEN at 1 and 6 months in improving mental health (as assessed by the Distress Questionnaire [DQ-5], Patient Health Questionnaire [PHQ-9], Generalized Anxiety Disorder [GAD-7], Oldenburg Burnout Inventory [OBI-16], and Work and Social Adjustment Scale [WSAS]) and reducing mental health stigma (the Endorsed and Anticipated Stigma Inventory [EASI]), and (3) an implementation study where TEN service uptake analytics will be examined for 3 months before and after the introduction of the implementation strategy. The implementation strategy, designed with input from the consultation and observational studies, is expected to lead to an increased number of unique visits to the TEN website in the 3 months following the introduction of the implementation strategy. The observational study is expected to observe high service acceptability. Moderate improvements to general mental health (DQ-5, WSAS) and a reduction in workplace- and treatment-related mental health stigma (EASI) between the baseline and 1-month time points are expected. TEN is a first-of-a-kind blended mental health service available to Australian HCWs. The results of this project have the potential to inform the implementation and development of blended care mental health services, as well as how such services can be effectively implemented during a crisis. DERR1-10.2196/34601
Publisher: JMIR Publications Inc.
Date: 03-03-2021
Abstract: igital mental health interventions stand to play a critical role in managing the mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, enhancing their uptake is a key priority. General practitioners (GPs) are well positioned to facilitate access to digital interventions, but tools that assist GPs in identifying suitable patients are lacking. his study aims to evaluate the suitability of a web-based mental health screening and treatment recommendation tool ( i StepCare /i ) for improving the identification of anxiety and depression in general practice and, subsequently, uptake of digital mental health interventions. tepCare screens patients for symptoms of depression (9-item Patient Health Questionnaire) and anxiety (7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale) in the GP waiting room. It provides GPs with stepped treatment recommendations that include digital mental health interventions for patients with mild to moderate symptoms. Patients (N=5138) from 85 general practices across Australia were invited to participate in screening. creening identified depressive or anxious symptoms in 43.09% (1428/3314) of patients (one-quarter were previously unidentified or untreated). The majority (300/335, 89.6%) of previously unidentified or untreated patients had mild to moderate symptoms and were candidates for digital mental health interventions. Although less than half were prescribed a digital intervention by their GP, when a digital intervention was prescribed, more than two-thirds of patients reported using it. mplementing web-based mental health screening in general practices can provide important opportunities for GPs to improve the identification of symptoms of mental illness and increase patient access to digital mental health interventions. Although GPs prescribed digital interventions less frequently than in-person psychotherapy or medication, the promising rates of uptake by GP-referred patients suggest that GPs can play a critical role in ch ioning digital interventions and maximizing the associated benefits. >
Publisher: JMIR Publications Inc.
Date: 18-11-2020
Abstract: n Australia, secondary school educators are well positioned to recognize mental illness among students and provide support. However, many report that they lack the knowledge and confidence to do so, and few mental health training programs available for educators are evidence based. To address this gap, the Black Dog Institute (BDI) developed a web-based training program (Building Educators’ Skills in Adolescent Mental Health [BEAM]) that aims to improve mental health knowledge, confidence, and helping behaviors among secondary school educators in leadership positions. A pilot study of the training program found it to be positively associated with increased confidence and helping behaviors among educators and reduced personal psychological distress. An adequately powered randomized controlled trial (RCT) is needed. he primary objective of this cluster RCT is to evaluate the effectiveness of the BEAM program for improving educators’ confidence in managing student mental health. The trial will also evaluate the effect of the BEAM program in increasing educators’ frequency of providing help to students and improving their mental health knowledge and reducing educators’ psychological distress and stigma toward students with mental health issues. he target s le size is 234 educators from 47 secondary schools across New South Wales, Australia. Four waves of recruitment and enrollment into the trial are planned. Schools will participate in one wave only and will be randomized to the intervention or waitlist control conditions. Participants from the same school will be assigned to the same condition. Assessments will be conducted at baseline, posttest (10 weeks after baseline), and follow-up (22 weeks after baseline) using the BDI eHealth research platform. Intervention participants will receive access to the BEAM program for 10 weeks upon completion of baseline, and the control condition will receive access for 10 weeks upon completion of the follow-up assessment. ecruitment for this trial began on July 21, 2020, with the first baseline assessments occurring on August 17, 2020. To date, 295 participants from 71 schools have completed baseline. Due to the unexpected success of recruitment in the first 3 waves, the final fourth wave has been abandoned. Intervention participants are currently receiving the program, with follow-up due for completion in March 2021. his is one of the first RCTs to examine the effectiveness of a web-based adolescent mental health training program for Australian secondary school educators in leadership positions. If found to be effective, this training program will offer a sustainable and scalable delivery method for upskilling educators in caring for students’ mental health. ustralian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12620000876998 tudies/crs-14669208 ERR1-10.2196/25870
Start Date: 03-2018
End Date: 10-2023
Amount: $2,962,655.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity