Teachers as first responders: classroom experiences and mental health training needs of Australian schoolteachers.

BACKGROUND: Schoolteachers are often the first to respond when a student presents with a mental health issue in the classroom. This places a burden on schools that impacts school staff, healthcare workers and teachers. More broadly, it places a responsibility on the education system to address students' mental health. This study examines Australian teachers' classroom experiences and the training areas identified by teachers as necessary to manage these issues. METHOD: Interviews were undertaken with 18 in-service teachers between 2020 and 2021 from Catholic, Independent and Public schools. Data were gathered via multiple interviews and analysed using thematic content analysis. RESULTS: The major mental health issues identified by teachers related to mental disorders, depression, anxiety, and a complex range of negative emotional states. Teachers requested training in child and adolescent mental health, counselling skills, early detection and intervention, and training skills to manage the complex relationship with parents and external health and community personnel. Teachers also reported the need to access mental health resources, support and training, which were differentially accessed along socioeconomic status and postcodes. CONCLUSION: The data show that teachers are often placed as first responders when a student has a mental health issue but feel inadequately trained to manage these issues in the classroom. We identified mental health issues presenting in Australian classrooms and documented critical features of mental-health training asked for by teachers in order to address those issues. Given the increasing demands on teachers to address the mental health of children and adolescents, we argue that an urgent review of mental health training for teachers is needed.

Efficacy and Effectiveness of Universal School-Based Wellbeing Interventions in Australia: A Systematic Review.

The World Health Organisation defines health in terms of wellbeing, and wellbeing has become both a construct and a measure of impact in early intervention and prevention programs in schools. In Australia, schools report on their wellbeing initiatives and there is a plethora of government-funded wellbeing programs already in place in schools. However, education systems and stakeholders worldwide are facing significant challenges with mixed evaluation results of program impact and intervention effect. To better support students, schools, school-based healthcare workers, and community, it is important to know about the effectiveness of school-based programs; yet in the last decade, there has been no national appraisal of these programs in Australia. This systematic review aims to report on the effectiveness of Australian school-based wellbeing programs through a search of 13 databases. Out of 2888 articles, 29 met inclusion criteria. The results found that seventeen interventions comprising 80% of the total number of participants reported no statistically significant intervention effect on wellbeing outcomes. We argue that supporting wellbeing through robust program intervention is important as wellbeing presents both an indication of later onset of more serious mental health issues, and an opportunity for early intervention to break the trajectory leading to full disorder.

Human plasma dynamically quenches the fluorescein at the initial point of oxygen radical absorption capacity (ORAC) assay.

OBJECTIVE: Oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) assay measures the quenching of fluorescent probe by peroxyl radicals. Antioxidants present in biological systems block the quenching of fluorescence probe. We experienced the dynamic quenching of fluorescein, the fluorescence probe used in ORAC assay by the human plasma while plasma ORAC assay was optimized. Therefore, for the first time, we report the quenching of fluorescein by human plasma at the initial point of ORAC assay. RESULTS: Aqueous whole and non-protein fractions of plasma were used in the analysis. Since the both fractions showed a similar pattern of quenching at the initial stage, quenched percentage of fluorescein was calculated and added to each sample in subsequent analysis. Addition of extra 20% fluorescein allowed plasma samples to quench the required amount of fluorescein and follow the normal decay curves afterwards. Further, change of fluorescein quenching (ΔF/F0) disclosed a dose dependent linear relationship with plasma (R2 = 0.8). It can be speculated that dynamic quenching exhibited by human plasma biomolecule/s at the initial stage would be of non-protein aqueous phase molecule/s. We suggest initiating further studies to detect, identify and quantify the fluorescein quenching biomolecules present in human plasma for further improvements in plasma ORAC assay.

Poor Glycaemic Control Is Associated with Increased Lipid Peroxidation and Glutathione Peroxidase Activity in Type 2 Diabetes Patients.

Glycaemic control is the main focus of managing diabetes and its complications. Hyperglycaemia induces oxidative stress favouring cellular damage and subsequent diabetic complications. The present study was conducted to compare the plasma total antioxidant capacity (TAC) and individual antioxidant marker antioxidant status of type 2 diabetics (T2D) with good ((+) GC) and poor ((-) GC) glycaemic control with prediabetic (PDM) and normoglycaemic (NG) individuals. T2D (n = 147), PDM (n = 47), and NGC (n = 106) were recruited as subjects. T2D and PDM had lower plasma TAG than NG subjects. T2D and PDM had significantly higher GPx activity and plasma MDA concentrations than NG. PDM showed the highest SOD activity. T2D (-) GC showed significantly elevated GPx activity and higher MDA level and significantly lower SOD activity among all study groups. Lower plasma TAC and higher plasma MDA indicate the presence of oxidative stress in T2D and PDM. Elevated GPx activity in T2D, PDM, and particularly in T2D (-) GC suggests a compensatory response to counteract excess lipid peroxidation in the hyperglycaemic state. Decline in SOD activity advocates the presence of glycation and excess lipid peroxidation in T2D.