1. Promoting and Protecting Mental Health: A Delphi Consensus Study for Actionable Public Mental Health Messages.
- Author
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Breedvelt, Josefien J. F., Yap, Jade, Eising, Dorien D., Ebert, David D., Smit, Filip, Thorpe, Lucy, and Kousoulis, Antonis A.
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MENTAL health , *MENTAL illness , *DELPHI method , *MENTAL health promotion , *PUBLIC health - Abstract
Purpose: Public health campaigns are still relatively rare in mental health. This paper aims to find consensus on the preventive self-management actions (i.e. "healthy behaviors") for common mental health problems (e.g. depression and anxiety) that should be recommended in mental health campaigns directed at the general public.Approach: A 3-round Delphi study.Participants: 23 international experts in mental health and 1447 members of the public, most of whom had lived experience of mental health problems.Method: The modified Delphi study combined quantitative and qualitative data collection: 1) online qualitative survey data collection thematically analyzed, 2) recommendations rated for consensus, 3) consensus items rated by public panel on a Likert scale.Results: Expert consensus was reached on 15 behaviors that individuals can engage in to sustain mental health. Eight were rated as appropriate by more than half (50%) of the public panel, including: avoiding illicit drugs (80%, n = 1154), reducing debt (72%, n = 1043), improving sleep (69%, n = 1000), regulating mood (65%, n = 941), having things to look forward to (60%, n = 869).Conclusions: A series of healthy behaviors for the promotion and protection of mental health received expert and public consensus. To our knowledge, this is the first study to offer a set of actions for public health messaging for the prevention of poor mental health. Future research should focus on evaluating effectiveness of these actions in a universal primary prevention context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2021
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