Predicting confidence in performing mental health actions among allied professionals.

One in five young people before the age of 25 exhibit onset of symptoms of an emotional or behavioral disorder (Kessler et al., 2005). Up to 80% of depressed youth do not receive services (Kataoka, 2002) and less than 50% of the time youth seek help for suicidal ideation and/or self-harm (Michelmore & Hindley, 2012). This high prevalence of mental health distress and low frequency of help-seeking among youth require examination of factors influencing youths’ likelihood of seeking help. One factor that increases the likelihood of help-seeking is encouragement from others to seek mental health services (Cusack et al., 2004). These others include a certain class of helpers -- such as coaches, teachers, nurses, after school care providers, i.e., allied professionals-- who are not trained specifically as mental health providers but are well positioned to help youth experiencing mental health distress. Factors associated with allied professionals confidence to take mental health action has received little attention (i.e., O’Brien et al., 2016; Spear et al., 2021; Ramluggun et al., 2022). Therefore, this study investigated the relationship between a set of allied professionals’ characteristics and their confidence to perform mental health actions in response to mental health distress, as well as mental health actions specific to those in a suicidal crisis. Baseline data collected from allied professionals (n=233) residing in a metropolitan area attending a mental health awareness program using the Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) curriculum were analyzed using multiple regression techniques. Only a small amount of variability was explained by the factors examined in the study. Mental health literacy was the strongest significant predictor followed by past personal experiences with other’s suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and then age. These findings indicate the need to test more robust predictors and reinforce the importance of promoting mental health literacy with allied professionals to gain confidence in attending to mental health distress among young people.