Abstract
BackgroundThe aim of this project was to investigate in members of the Vietnamese community in Melbourne the impact of Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training on attitudes to people with mental illness and on knowledge about mental disorders. Our hypotheses were that at the end of the training participants would have increased knowledge of mental disorders and their treatments, and decreased negative attitudes towards people with mental disorders.MethodsRespondents were 114 participants in two-day MHFA training workshops for the Vietnamese community in Melbourne conducted by two qualified MHFA trainers. Participants completed the research questionnaire prior to the commencement of the training (pre-test) and at its completion (post-test). The questionnaires assessed negative attitudes towards people with mental illness (as described in four vignettes), ability to recognise the mental disorders described in the vignettes, and knowledge about how to assist someone with one of these disorders. Responses to open-ended questions were content analysed and coded. To evaluate the effect of the training, answers to the structured questions and to the coded open-ended questions given at pre- and post-test were compared using McNemar tests for dichotomous values and Wilcoxon tests for other scores.ResultsBetween pre- and post-test there was significant improvement in recognition of mental disorders; more targeted and appropriate mental health first aid responses, and reduction in inappropriate first aid responses; and negative attitudes to the people described in the vignettes declined significantly on many items of the stigma scale.ConclusionA two-day, MHFA training course for general members of the Vietnamese community in Melbourne demonstrated significant reductions in stigmatising attitudes, improved knowledge of mental disorders and improved knowledge about appropriate forms of assistance to give to people in the community with mental disorder. There is sufficient evidence to scale up to a population level program for the Vietnamese community, and a need for longitudinal evaluation of such a scaled up program.
Highlights
The aim of this project was to investigate in members of the Vietnamese community in Melbourne the impact of Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training on attitudes to people with mental illness and on knowledge about mental disorders
The training was delivered by two qualified MHFA instructors, both mental health professionals, and both born in Vietnam, who were involved in the cultural adaptation of the MHFA training course and manual
It would appear from the findings reported here that, through the means of a brief and inexpensive training course that is understandable to general members of the Vietnamese community, it is possible to improve knowledge concerning mental disorders, to teach more appropriate responses when mental disorder is present, and to reduce negative and stigmatising attitudes towards mental illness and people with mental illness
Summary
The aim of this project was to investigate in members of the Vietnamese community in Melbourne the impact of Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training on attitudes to people with mental illness and on knowledge about mental disorders. There is an emerging consensus that several elements are essential for successful reform and for the development of mental health services that are effective, affordable, accessible and equitable. Among these are a population mental health perspective, a whole of government approach [10,11], genuine stakeholder participation in decisionmaking [12,13], and an informed and engaged community [14,15]. In a large epidemiological study of Vietnam-born adults in Sydney, Australia, Silove and colleagues [18] reported substantially lower prevalence of mental disorder (6.9%) than that found for all Australians (18.6%). Despite the fact that the Vietnam-born had had substantially greater exposure to traumatic events than the Australia-born, the rate of PTSD in both populations was 3.5%
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