Is there a future in mental health promotion and consultation for nurses?
Annette Woodhouse
Department of Rural and Indigenous Health, School of Rural Health, Monash University, VIC
PP: 177 - 189
Abstract
There is an increasing focus on the importance of mental health promotion from an international perspective to national and statewide levels within Australia. This focus on promotion is relevant to mental health nurses as we are currently unable to address the mental health needs of young people within our existing Australian mental health services.
Mental health promotion and prevention approaches enhance the capacities of individuals and communities to understand and respond to mental health issues, while promoting the mental health of whole populations. These approaches develop collaborative intersectoral relationships and have the potential to address mental health issues across whole communities.
The author overviews general mental health promotion literature before specifically focussing on young people and their mental health needs. Current issues for mental health nurses are then presented alongside the author's own previous child, adolescent and family mental health promotion practice within a rural part of Victoria, Australia. Her purpose is to illustrate the potential challenges, opportunities and strategies in implementing new mental health promotion roles for nurses with young people who are most at risk of developing a mental health issue.
Keywords
Mental health promotion, nursing, mental health nursing, education, consultation.
Article Text
Currently there is a high level of unmet need in the Australian population of young people with mental health issues (Sawyer & Patton, 2000, pp. 13-14; Sawyer et al., 2001; Senate Community Affairs : Commonwealth of Australia, 2008; State Government of Victoria, 2008; Zubrick, Silburn, Burton, & Blair, 2000).Young people are the most vulnerable age group for developing a mental illness with over 75% of these illnesses occurring before the age of 25 years. Targeting this age group for mental health prevention is therefore vital (State Government of Victoria, 2008).
In addition to the high prevalence of 14% of mental health issues in populations of young people, only one in four of those affected receiving professional help (Sawyer et al., 2001; State Government of Victoria, 2008; Zubrick et al., 2000). Child, adolescent and family mental health services (CAMHS) will never meet the gap between prevalence and treatment of mental illnesses which are described as "vast"(Zubrick et al., 2000, p. 572). What is required is alternatives for servicing these young people such as increasing the collaboration between mental health services, schools, family doctors and paediatricans ,making these settings important sites for mental health promotion and prevention (Sawyer et al., 2001).There is also a need to move from focusing on treatment only approaches to an investment in mental health promotion and prevention particularly for anxiety, depression and conduct disorders given the evidence supporting the potential for prevention of these disorders (World Health Organisation, 2004a; Zubrick et al., 2000).
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