Suicidal ideation and behaviours are common among adolescents, posing significant challenges. Parents have a protective role in mitigating this risk, yet they often feel ill-equipped to support their adolescents, and their specific support needs are not well understood.

To explore the lived experiences of parents with suicidal adolescents and identify their support needs in the context of a therapist-assisted online parenting programme.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with three stakeholder groups based in Australia: nine parents with lived experience caring for a suicidal adolescent, five young people who experienced suicidality during adolescence and five clinical/research experts in youth mental health/suicide prevention. Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyse and interpret findings.

Three key themes highlight the experience of parenting a suicidal adolescent: the traumatising emotional experience, uncertainty and parent empowerment. Six themes described parents’ support needs: validation and support, practical and tailored strategies, rebuilding the parent–adolescent relationship, parental self-care, flexible and accessible modes of delivery, and understanding non-suicidal self-injury.

Findings highlight key themes of parenting a suicidal adolescent and parental support needs. An online parenting programme could offer parents flexible access to evidence-based parenting strategies. Yet, a purely digital approach may not address the complexities of the parent-adolescent dynamic and provide adequate tailoring. As such, a hybrid approach incorporating therapist support can provide parents with both the compassionate support and practical guidance they seek.

Cross-national comparisons of the prevalence of mental disorders have relied on lay-administered interviews scored using complex diagnostic algorithms. However, this approach has led to some paradoxical findings, with more vulnerable countries showing lower prevalence, and its appropriateness for cross-national comparisons has been questioned. This study used an alternative method involving simple questions from social surveys to assess the prevalence of specific depression and anxiety symptoms, and investigated their association with national indicators of human development, quality of government, mental health resources, and mental health governance.

The study used data on the prevalence of three symptoms indicating depression or anxiety: sadness, worry, and unhappiness. These data were taken from the Gallup World Poll (142 countries) and the World Values Survey (77 countries). National characteristics examined covered indicators of human development (income, life span, education, gender equality), quality of government (human freedom, perceptions of corruption), mental health resources (per capita numbers of psychiatrists, mental health nurses, psychologists, and social workers), and mental health governance (whether there is a national mental health plan and a mental health law).

All the human development and quality of government indicators, and some of the mental health resource indicators, were strongly associated with a lower prevalence of symptoms.

Populations of nations with higher human development, quality of government, and mental health resources have better mental health when measured by the prevalence of specific symptoms.

Expert-consensus guidelines have been developed for how members of the public should assist a person with a mental health problem or in a mental health crisis.

This review aimed to examine the range of guidelines that have been developed and how these have been implemented in practice.

A narrative review was carried out based on a systematic search for literature on the development or implementation of the guidelines.

The Delphi method has been used to develop a wide range of guidelines for English-speaking countries, Asian countries and a number of other cultural groups. The primary implementation has been through informing the content of training courses.

Further work is needed on guidelines for low- and middle-income countries.

A.F.J. is an unpaid member of the Board of Mental Health First Aid International (trading as Mental Health First Aid Australia), which is a not-for-profit organisation.

A 1995 Australian national survey of mental health literacy showed poor recognition of disorders and beliefs about treatment that differed from those of health professionals. A similar survey carried out in 2003/4 showed some improvements over 8 years.

To investigate whether recognition of mental disorders and beliefs about treatment have changed over a 16-year period.

A national survey of 6019 adults was carried out in 2011 using the same questions as the 1995 and 2003/4 surveys.

Results showed improved recognition of depression and more positive ratings for a range of interventions, including help from mental health professionals and antidepressants.

Although beliefs about effective medications and interventions have moved closer to those of health professionals since the previous surveys, there is still potential for mental health literacy gains in the areas of recognition and treatment beliefs for mental disorders. This is particularly the case for schizophrenia.

Subthreshold depression is common, impairs functioning and increases the risk of major depression. Improving self-help coping strategies could help subthreshold depression and prevent major depression.

To test the effectiveness of an automated email-based campaign promoting self-help behaviours.

A randomised controlled trial was conducted through the website: www.moodmemos.com. Participants received automated emails twice weekly for 6 weeks containing advice about self-help strategies. Emails containing general information about depression served as a control. The principal outcome was depression symptom level on the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) (trial registration: ACTRN12609000925246).

The study recruited 1326 adults with subthreshold depression. There was a small significant difference in depression symptoms at post-intervention, favouring the active group (d = 0.17, 95% CI 0.01–0.34). There was a lower, although non-significant, risk of major depression in the active group (number needed to treat (NNT) 25, 95% CI 11 to ∞ to NNT(harm) 57).

Emails promoting self-help strategies were beneficial. Internet delivery of self-help messages affords a low-cost, easily disseminated and highly automated approach for indicated prevention of depression.

Few randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have examined potential preventive agents in high-risk community populations.

To determine whether a mental health literacy intervention, the promotion of physical activity, or folic acid plus vitamin B12 reduce depression symptoms in community-dwelling older adults with elevated psychological distress.

An RCT with a completely crossed 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design: (400 mcg/d folic acid + 100 mcg/d vitamin B12v. placebo)×(physical activity v. nutrition promotion control) × (mental health literacy v. pain information control). The initial target sample size was 2000; however, only 909 adults (60–74 years) met the study criteria. Interventions were delivered by mail with telephone calls. The main outcome was depressive symptoms on the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ–9) at 6 weeks, 6, 12 and 24 months. The Clinicaltrials.gov registration number is NCT00214682.

The drop-out rate was low (13.5%) from randomisation to 24-month assessment. Neither folic acid + B12 (F(3,856) = 0.83, P = 0.476) nor physical activity (F(3,856) = 1.65, P = 0.177) reduced depressive symptoms at any time point. At 6 weeks, depressive symptoms were lower for the mental health literacy intervention compared with its control condition (t(895) = 2.04, P = 0.042).

Mental health literacy had a transient effect on depressive symptoms. Other than this, none of the interventions significantly reduced symptoms relative to their comparator at 6 weeks or subsequently. Neither folic acid plus B12 nor physical activity were effective in reducing depressive symptoms.

Little is known about the development of stigma towards people with mental disorders.

To investigate stigma in young Australians and the influence of exposure to mental disorders, parental attitudes and information campaigns.

A national telephone survey was carried out with 3746 people aged 12–25 years and 2005 co-resident parents. Stigmatising attitudes were assessed in relation to four vignettes (depression, depression with alcohol misuse, social phobia and psychosis).

Stigma was found to have multiple components labelled ‘social distance’, ‘dangerous/unpredictable’, ‘weak not sick’, ‘stigma perceived in others' and ‘reluctance to disclose’. Exposure to mental disorders and help-seeking in oneself or others was associated with lower scores on some components of stigma but not on others. Young people's attitudes showed specific associations with those of parents. Exposure to campaigns was associated with reductions in beliefs that the person is ‘weak not sick’.

Personal experiences, parental attitudes and campaigns all affect stigmatising attitudes.