As counselling is a developing profession without statutory regulation in Australia, anyone can engage in counselling practice and use “counsellor” as a professional title. Not much is known about those who call themselves counsellors in Australia. This survey research in a field setting aimed to describe Australian Yellow Pages Advertised Counsellors, thus providing a snapshot of advertised counsellors in Australia. This research was thus designed to describe those who are engaging in advertised counselling practice in Australia. Data was collected using a multiple mailing survey method and resulted in a 62.2% return rate. The counsellors' (1) demographic characteristics, (2) counselling training and development, (3) provision of counselling services, and (4) professional involvement were assessed. Advertised Australian counsellors tend to be female, mature, Caucasian, married or partnered, heterosexual, have families, and hold Christian beliefs. The majority of counsellors live in urban areas. The field could arguably benefit from increasing the diversity of its members. Nevertheless, advertised Australian counsellors are qualified professionals who tend to hold university qualifications and are likely to have received their training in counselling from a university provider. They are experienced service providers and engage in ongoing supervision as a supervisee. Moreover, these counsellors are involved in a variety of professional organizations. Advertised Australian counsellors, however, often struggle with issues related to burnout. They demonstrate their belief in the power of counselling by engaging in personal counselling. Advertised Australian counsellors actively engage in professional development, read professional journals, and report wanting further training regarding cognitive behaviour therapy, family therapy, EMDR, hypnosis, and trauma‐related difficulties. The majority of counsellors indicate making $40,000 or less per year. Survey results clearly indicate that the professionalisation of counselling is underway.

Treatment effect in Huntington disease (HD) clinical trials has relied on primary outcome measures such as total motor score or functional rating scales. However, these measures have limited sensitivity, particularly in pre- to early stages of the disease. We performed a systematic review of HD clinical studies to identify endpoints that correlate with disease severity. Using standard HD keywords and terms, we identified 749 published studies from 1993 to 2011 based on the availability of demographic, biochemical, and clinical measures. The average and variability of each measure was abstracted and stratified according to pre-far, pre-close, early, mild, moderate, and severe HD stages. A fixed-effect meta-analysis on selected variables was conducted at various disease stages. A total of 1,801 different clinical variables and treatment outcomes were identified. Unified Huntington Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS) Motor, UHDRS Independence, and Trail B showed a trend toward separation between HD stages. Other measures, such as UHDRS Apathy, Verbal Fluency, and Symbol Digit, could only distinguish between pre- and early stages of disease and later stages, whereas other measures showed little correlation with increasing HD stages. Using cross-sectional data from published HD clinical trials, we have identified potential endpoints that could be used to track HD disease progression and treatment effect. Longitudinal studies, such as TRACK-HD, are critical for assessing the value of potential markers of disease progression for use in future HD therapeutic trials. A list of variables, references used in this meta-analysis, and database is available at http://www.cmmt.ubc.ca/research/investigators/leavitt/publications.