Development of an Interprofessional Psychosocial Interventions Framework.

To meet the increasingly complex needs of mental health consumers, it is essential for multidisciplinary clinicians to have capabilities across a range of psychosocial interventions. Despite this, there is scant evidence investigating the existing levels of knowledge and skills of specialties within multidisciplinary mental health teams. The purpose of this paper was to describe the self-reported capabilities of mental health clinicians, and to provide a rationale for the Psychosocial Interventions Framework Assessment (PIFA), which aims to enhance the access to, and quality of, evidence-informed practice for consumers of mental health services (MHSs) by strengthening workforce capabilities and leadership for psychosocial therapies. Using the Delphi method, the team developed a 75-item survey based on the 10-point Mental Health Recovery Star (MHRS). Participants completed a self-administered survey indicating their perceived capabilities in the PIFA items. The findings revealed lower-than-expected average scores between 'novice' and 'proficient', highlighting the need for further development of specific training and education modules for individual teams. This is the first framework of its nature to use the Recovery StarTM to determine the psychosocial areas and domains for the assessment of practitioners' strengths and needs for skill development.

The impact of viral epidemics and pandemics on acute mental health service use: an integrative review.

The aim of this integrative review was to examine the impact of past viral epidemics on mental health, with a specific focus on changes in numbers of acute mental health presentations and mental health service recommendations in response to this, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Following PRISMA methodology, databases were searched for relevant publications. A total of 83 articles with a range of methodologies were included to ensure broad coverage of this rapidly emerging research area. The literature supports an initial increase in mental health concerns which generally do not reach the threshold for diagnosis with a mental illness, but present to frontline telephone services. There is a potential delay before community and hospital-based mental health services see an increase in new or relapsing mental illness presentations. However vulnerable populations, such as people with pre-existing mental illness, are at increased risk of mental health issues during such public health crises. Many of the general recommendations distilled from the literature are closely aligned with existing strategic frameworks for mental health service provision. However, in review of these frameworks, gaps in the literature become more apparent, such as a failure to include people with lived experience, peer workers, and First Nations People in the COVID-19 mental health response.