Cargando…

Silence is deadly: a cluster-randomised controlled trial of a mental health help-seeking intervention for young men

BACKGROUND: Young men are consistently less likely to seek help for mental health problems than their female peers. This is particularly concerning given the high rates of suicide among male adolescents. The school system has been identified as an ideal setting for the implementation of prevention a...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Calear, Alison L., Banfield, Michelle, Batterham, Philip J., Morse, Alyssa R., Forbes, Owen, Carron-Arthur, Bradley, Fisk, Martin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5653993/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29061168
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4845-z
_version_ 1783273319357743104
author Calear, Alison L.
Banfield, Michelle
Batterham, Philip J.
Morse, Alyssa R.
Forbes, Owen
Carron-Arthur, Bradley
Fisk, Martin
author_facet Calear, Alison L.
Banfield, Michelle
Batterham, Philip J.
Morse, Alyssa R.
Forbes, Owen
Carron-Arthur, Bradley
Fisk, Martin
author_sort Calear, Alison L.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Young men are consistently less likely to seek help for mental health problems than their female peers. This is particularly concerning given the high rates of suicide among male adolescents. The school system has been identified as an ideal setting for the implementation of prevention and early intervention programs for young people. The current trial aims to determine the effectiveness of the Silence is Deadly program in increasing positive help-seeking intentions for mental health problems and suicide among male secondary school students. METHODS: This study is a two-arm, cluster-randomised, controlled trial that will compare the Silence is Deadly program to a wait-list control condition. Eight Australian high schools will be recruited to the trial, with male students in grades 11 and 12 (16 to 18 years of age) targeted for participation. The program is an innovative male-tailored suicide prevention intervention, comprising a presentation that emphasises role-modelling and legitimises help-seeking for personal and emotional problems, and a brief video that features celebrity athletes who counter existing male norms around help-seeking and encourage communication about personal and emotional issues. The program also includes a discussion of how to help a friend in distress and ends with a question and answer session. The primary outcome measure for the current study is help-seeking intentions. Secondary outcomes include help-seeking behaviour, help-seeking attitudes, help-seeking stigma, mental health symptoms, and suicidal ideation. Data will be collected pre-intervention, post-intervention, and at 3-month follow-up. Primary analyses will compare changes in help-seeking intentions for the intervention condition relative to the wait-list control condition using mixed-effects repeated-measures analyses that account for clustering within schools. DISCUSSION: If proven to be effective, this targeted help-seeking intervention for adolescent males, which is currently only delivered in one jurisdiction, could be more widely delivered in Australian high schools. The Silence is Deadly program has the potential to significantly contribute to the mental health of young men in Australia by improving help-seeking for suicidality and mental health problems, allowing this population to better access treatment and support sooner. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, ACTRN12617000658314. Registered on 8 May 2017. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-017-4845-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-5653993
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2017
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-56539932017-10-26 Silence is deadly: a cluster-randomised controlled trial of a mental health help-seeking intervention for young men Calear, Alison L. Banfield, Michelle Batterham, Philip J. Morse, Alyssa R. Forbes, Owen Carron-Arthur, Bradley Fisk, Martin BMC Public Health Study Protocol BACKGROUND: Young men are consistently less likely to seek help for mental health problems than their female peers. This is particularly concerning given the high rates of suicide among male adolescents. The school system has been identified as an ideal setting for the implementation of prevention and early intervention programs for young people. The current trial aims to determine the effectiveness of the Silence is Deadly program in increasing positive help-seeking intentions for mental health problems and suicide among male secondary school students. METHODS: This study is a two-arm, cluster-randomised, controlled trial that will compare the Silence is Deadly program to a wait-list control condition. Eight Australian high schools will be recruited to the trial, with male students in grades 11 and 12 (16 to 18 years of age) targeted for participation. The program is an innovative male-tailored suicide prevention intervention, comprising a presentation that emphasises role-modelling and legitimises help-seeking for personal and emotional problems, and a brief video that features celebrity athletes who counter existing male norms around help-seeking and encourage communication about personal and emotional issues. The program also includes a discussion of how to help a friend in distress and ends with a question and answer session. The primary outcome measure for the current study is help-seeking intentions. Secondary outcomes include help-seeking behaviour, help-seeking attitudes, help-seeking stigma, mental health symptoms, and suicidal ideation. Data will be collected pre-intervention, post-intervention, and at 3-month follow-up. Primary analyses will compare changes in help-seeking intentions for the intervention condition relative to the wait-list control condition using mixed-effects repeated-measures analyses that account for clustering within schools. DISCUSSION: If proven to be effective, this targeted help-seeking intervention for adolescent males, which is currently only delivered in one jurisdiction, could be more widely delivered in Australian high schools. The Silence is Deadly program has the potential to significantly contribute to the mental health of young men in Australia by improving help-seeking for suicidality and mental health problems, allowing this population to better access treatment and support sooner. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, ACTRN12617000658314. Registered on 8 May 2017. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-017-4845-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2017-10-23 /pmc/articles/PMC5653993/ /pubmed/29061168 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4845-z Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Study Protocol
Calear, Alison L.
Banfield, Michelle
Batterham, Philip J.
Morse, Alyssa R.
Forbes, Owen
Carron-Arthur, Bradley
Fisk, Martin
Silence is deadly: a cluster-randomised controlled trial of a mental health help-seeking intervention for young men
title Silence is deadly: a cluster-randomised controlled trial of a mental health help-seeking intervention for young men
title_full Silence is deadly: a cluster-randomised controlled trial of a mental health help-seeking intervention for young men
title_fullStr Silence is deadly: a cluster-randomised controlled trial of a mental health help-seeking intervention for young men
title_full_unstemmed Silence is deadly: a cluster-randomised controlled trial of a mental health help-seeking intervention for young men
title_short Silence is deadly: a cluster-randomised controlled trial of a mental health help-seeking intervention for young men
title_sort silence is deadly: a cluster-randomised controlled trial of a mental health help-seeking intervention for young men
topic Study Protocol
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5653993/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29061168
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4845-z
work_keys_str_mv AT calearalisonl silenceisdeadlyaclusterrandomisedcontrolledtrialofamentalhealthhelpseekinginterventionforyoungmen
AT banfieldmichelle silenceisdeadlyaclusterrandomisedcontrolledtrialofamentalhealthhelpseekinginterventionforyoungmen
AT batterhamphilipj silenceisdeadlyaclusterrandomisedcontrolledtrialofamentalhealthhelpseekinginterventionforyoungmen
AT morsealyssar silenceisdeadlyaclusterrandomisedcontrolledtrialofamentalhealthhelpseekinginterventionforyoungmen
AT forbesowen silenceisdeadlyaclusterrandomisedcontrolledtrialofamentalhealthhelpseekinginterventionforyoungmen
AT carronarthurbradley silenceisdeadlyaclusterrandomisedcontrolledtrialofamentalhealthhelpseekinginterventionforyoungmen
AT fiskmartin silenceisdeadlyaclusterrandomisedcontrolledtrialofamentalhealthhelpseekinginterventionforyoungmen