Help-Seeking from a National Youth Helpline in Australia: An Analysis of Kids Helpline Contacts

Abstract

Counselling helplines or hotlines are key support services for young people with mental health concerns or in suicide and self-harm crises. We aimed to describe young peoples’ use of a national youth helpline (Kids Helpline, Australia, KHL) to understand how usage changed over time. A descriptive analysis was conducted on 1,415,228 answered contacts between 2012–2018. We described the trend of service usage over the observed period, the types of youth who used the service, and the problems young people contacted the service about. Phone (APC = −9.1, KHL: −10.4 to −7.8, p < 0.001) and email (APC = −13.7, 95%CI: −17.1 to −10.2, p < 0.001) contacts decreased over time whereas webchat contacts increased (APC = 16.7, 95%CI: 11.7 to 22.0, p < 0.001). With this increase in webchat contacts, there was an associated increase in total webchat contact duration. Concerns raised in contacts to the service were primarily related to emotional wellbeing and mental health concerns (53.2% phone, 57.3% webchat, 58.2% email) followed by social relationship issues (20.4% phone, 20.3% webchat, 16.8% email) and family relationships (19.4% phone, 17.2% webchat, 21.8% email). The increased preference for online text-based information and counselling services can help inform development of services for young people and allocation of staff/service training and resources.

Acceptability and feasibility of a messenger-based psychological chat counselling service for children and young adults (“krisenchat”): A cross-sectional study

“…Various online support services, such as chat counselling, have been developed in recent years ( Chambers et al, 2018 ; Fukkink and Hermanns, 2009 ; Kauer et al, 2014 ; Watling et al, 2021 ). Studies show that children and adolescents searching for online support report high levels of distress, in some instances even higher levels than children and adolescents who seek support in services with face-to-face settings ( Dowling and Rickwood, 2016 ; Sefi and Hanley, 2012 ).…”

Barriers and Enablers to the Delivery of Email Communication for a Helpline Service for Young People

“…Despite its increasing popularity [11], this is the first study aiming to investigate the barriers and facilitators to the use of emails as a communication channel for mental health helpline services. The Behaviour Change Wheel proved to be a useful tool to achieve this objective as well as to advance a range of interventions to optimize this service provision.…”

“…Contrary to online counselling, helplines are unauthorized to offer a diagnosis but can only provide emotional support and signpost users to external services [8]. Increasing research has been devoted to examining the barriers and enablers to the provision of helpline services' communication channels including webchat [9], telephone [10], and SMS/text-message [11].…”

“…Email is also a typical helpline communication tool [11], yet few studies have examined its use. Particularly, no research to date has systematically investigated the influences on its delivery.…”

The Impact of Suicide Utility Perception on News over Terminally Ill Patients’ Suicide Attitudes: A Pilot Study

“…Among the efforts invested in prevention and the early detection of this problem, there have been different risk factors identified. Particularly in teenagers [6], risk factors such as adverse events, sexual and psychological abuse, psychiatric problems, impulsivity, parental suicide-bereavement, and hopelessness have been found [7,8].…”