Mental health support for health professionals

Black Dog Institute (BDI) is seeing an increase in support for health professionals since Omicron, with the service recording the highest user numbers from health professionals in the last 5 months.

Designed by health professionals for health professionals, BDI's The Essential Network (TEN) is an online e-health hub to meet the unique mental health needs of healthcare workers, prioritising confidential pathways to aid help-seeking. It provides healthcare workers with the tools and resources to cope with and manage burnout, stress and depression.

Through TEN, healthcare workers can access free clinical care with a BDI psychologist (offered via telehealth Australia-wide), evidence-based tools and resources, peer support and access to digital mental health programs.

"Ensuring that frontline workers have accessible mental health support is critical to ensuring they are able to continue to provide care to the broader population," according to Black Dog Institute.

"Increasing availability and accessibility of rapid antigen tests will support people to return to work with confidence while PCR testing sites continue to struggle to cope with demand. Similarly, greater resourcing to make booster vaccines more readily available may also help with distress.

"Prioritising availability of tests for healthcare workers and other essential workers may help to manage staffing shortages in the healthcare system."

Separately, a latest study by BDI revealed that 39% of young people aged 16–25 years who have experienced suicidal ideation in the past 12 months have not disclosed those thoughts, despite being engaged in therapy. The most common reason given (25.9%) was the concern their suicidal thoughts wouldn't be kept confidential by their mental health professional. However, the study also revealed more than 66% of young people would be more likely to share their suicidal distress with a professional if they could be assured of privacy. Furthermore, 54% of young people surveyed said they would be more likely to disclose this information if directly asked by their clinician whether they were having suicidal thoughts.

"These new insights suggest that each year many young people at risk for suicidal behaviour are missing out on the opportunity to receive clinical care and evidence-based therapeutic intervention," said Dr Lauren McGillivray, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Black Dog Institute. "Discovering why they are not seeking support for these thoughts is a key discovery on the road to being able to provide appropriate support."

Anyone seeking support can visit https://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/the-essential-network/.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/daniilvolkov