Helen Herrman

Helen Herrman
University of Melbourne | MSD

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332
Publications
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Introduction
Skills and Expertise

Publications

Publications (332)
Preprint
Background: There is growing recognition of the physical and mental health impacts of climate change and the attendant burden on health care systems, including from the World Health Organisation, the United Nations, and national governments. However, the repercussions on 'social health'— our access to meaningful social connections and the health an...
Article
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Introduction Major depressive disorder (MDD) causes significant disease burden and functional impairment during adolescence and young adulthood. While most young people recover from their first episode, around two-thirds will experience one or more relapses, which can become more severe and treatment-resistant with each episode. To address relapse...
Article
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Academic psychiatry is essential for advancing mental health understanding and treatments. However, women encounter more obstacles hindering their progress in academia than men. This Editorial aims to highlight these obstacles and propose strategies to address them, advocating for a more supportive environment for women psychiatrists’ ongoing growt...
Preprint
Introduction: Mental ill-health has a major impact on young people. Pain often co-occurs and may impact recovery from mental ill-health. We explored the prevalence and clinical impact of pain in young people with mental ill-health.Methods: A secondary analysis using longitudinal data (baseline and three-month follow-up) of 1,107 Australian young pe...
Article
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Psychiatry shares most ethical issues with other branches of medicine, but also faces special challenges. The Code of Ethics of the World Psychiatric Association offers guidance, but many mental health care professionals are unaware of it and the principles it supports. Furthermore, following codes of ethics is not always sufficient to address ethi...
Article
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Introduction Complex trauma can have serious impacts on the health and well-being of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families. The perinatal period represents a ‘critical window’ for recovery and transforming cycles of trauma into cycles of healing. The Healing the Past by Nurturing the Future (HPNF) project aims to implement and evaluate a p...
Chapter
The World Psychiatric Association (WPA) recommends implementing the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) by adopting a rights-based approach across its range of activities. The WPA works with Member Societies in 145 countries and with other partners to protect and promote mental health in the populations...
Preprint
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Background Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience intergenerational trauma as a legacy of the impacts of colonisation. Replanting the Birthing Trees (RBT) aims to transform compounding cycles of intergenerational trauma and harm to positively reinforcing cycles of intergenerational nurturing and recovery for Aboriginal and Torres S...
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Aim To describe the pattern of the prevalence of mental health problems during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and examine the impact of containment measures on these trends. Methods We identified articles published until 30 August 2021 that reported the prevalence of mental health problems in the general population at two or more time poi...
Article
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Aim To describe the pattern of the prevalence of mental health problems during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and examine the impact of containment measures on these trends. Methods We identified articles published until 30 August 2021 that reported the prevalence of mental health problems in the general population at two or more time poin...
Article
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Background Stakeholders worldwide increasingly acknowledge the need to address coercive practices in mental healthcare. Options have been described and evaluated in several countries, as noted recently in major policy documents from the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Psychiatric Association (WPA). The WHO's QualityRights initiative promo...
Article
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Aim To describe the pattern of the prevalence of mental health problems during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and examine the impact of containment measures on these trends. Methods We identified articles published until 30 August 2021 that reported the prevalence of mental health problems in the general population at two or more time poin...
Article
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Progress in promoting mental health, preventing mental illness, and improving care for people affected by mental illness is unlikely to occur if efforts remain separated from existing public health programs and the principles of public health action. Experts met recently to discuss integrating public health and mental health strategies in the south...
Article
A burgeoning mental health crisis is emerging globally, regardless of each country's human resources or spending. We argue that effectively responding to this crisis is impeded by the dominant framing of mental ill health through the prism of diagnostic categories, leading to an excessive reliance on interventions that are delivered by specialists;...
Article
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Background: Digital interventions have potential applications in promoting long-term recovery and improving outcomes in first-episode psychosis (FEP). This study aimed to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of Horyzons, a novel online social therapy to support young people aged 16-27 years following discharge from FEP services, compared with treatment...
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Background: Acceptable, effective and feasible support strategies (interventions) for parents experiencing complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) symptoms or with a history of childhood maltreatment may offer an opportunity to support parental recovery, reduce the risk of intergenerational transmission of trauma and improve life-course tra...
Article
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Background Family carers of youth recovering from early psychosis experience significant stress; however, access to effective family interventions is poor. Digital interventions provide a promising solution. Objective Our objective was to evaluate across multiple Australian early psychosis services the effectiveness of a novel, web-based early psyc...
Article
Background: Family members, who provide the majority of informal care during the recovery period from first-episode psychosis (FEP), experience high levels of psychological distress. However, there is a lack of effective and accessible interventions for FEP carers. Objective: To determine the effectiveness of an online intervention ("Altitudes")...
Article
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Purpose Use of alcohol and other substances is a multifaceted issue impacting young people across multiple life domains. This paper aims to elucidate patterns of substance use and associated demographic and clinical factors among young people seeking treatment for their mental health. Methods Young people (12–25 years old) were recruited from five...
Article
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Background Since colonisation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have experienced violence, loss of land, ongoing discrimination and increased exposure to traumatic events. These include adverse childhood experiences which can lead to complex trauma, and are associated with increased incidence of high-risk pregnancies, birth complicatio...
Article
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Aims The utility of quality of life (QoL) as an outcome measure in youth-specific primary mental health care settings has yet to be determined. We aimed to determine: (i) whether heterogeneity on individual items of a QoL measure could be used to identify distinct groups of help-seeking young people; and (ii) the validity of these groups based on h...
Article
Introduction: In Australian youth primary mental health settings it is unclear as to the rates and correlates of tobacco use at service entry. Aims and methods: We aimed to delineate the prevalence and correlates of recent tobacco use (eg, cigarettes, chewing tobacco, cigars, etc) in the past 3 months in young people at their first presentation...
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Family and extended kinship systems which nurture healthy, happy children are central to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. Since colonisation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have been impacted by intergenerational cycles of trauma, stemming from colonial violence, genocidal policies and discrimination, including the...
Article
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Backgroundheadspace centres provide enhanced primary mental healthcare for young people. A priority is to provide services for all young people irrespective of a range of social disadvantages or social exclusion. The aims of this study were to: (i) delineate extent of social inclusion across domains of housing, studying/employment, functioning, alc...
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Reducing the rate of over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care (OOHC) is a key Closing the Gap target committed to by all Australian governments. Current strategies are failing. The “gap” is widening, with the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in OOHC at 30 June 2020 being 11 time...
Article
Background Specialist early intervention (SEI) service models are designed to treat symptoms, promote social and vocational recovery, prevent relapse, and resource and up-skill patients and their families. The benefits of SEI over the first few years have been demonstrated. While early recovery can be expected to translate to better long-term outco...
Article
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Background Mental health policies outline the need for codesign of services and quality improvement in partnership with service users and staff (and sometimes carers), and yet, evidence of systematic implementation and the impacts on healthcare outcomes is limited. Objective The aim of this study was to test whether an adapted mental health experi...
Article
This is the first study to describe psychometric properties of the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K6) in a large cohort of help-seeking young people presenting to primary mental health care services. The aim was to determine whether the K6 was appropriate for monitoring outcomes in such settings. 1067 young people were recruited from Austral...
Article
Background : Suicidal ideation is common in young people. Assessment and monitoring can help to understand its dynamic nature and inform treatment planning. Aims : The aims were to evaluate psychometric properties of a brief screening tool - the Youth Suicide Ideation Screen-3 item (YSIS-3) and determine its correlation with the Suicidal Ideation...
Preprint
Background: Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) are often used in economic evaluations, yet utility weights for deriving them are rarely directly measured in mental health services. Objectives: We aimed to: (i) identify the best Transfer To Utility (TTU) algorithms and predictors for an adolescent specific Multi-Attribute Utility Instrument - the A...
Article
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PurposeHeadspace services provide treatment options to young people seeking mental healthcare. To obtain a better understanding of needs and characteristics of this population, and effectively evaluate services, we require novel youth-specific outcome measures. As part of our broad research program to establish such measures, a sample of young peop...
Article
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This study aimed to determine whether, following two years of specialized support for first-episode psychosis, the addition of a new digital intervention (Horyzons) to treatment as usual (TAU) for 18 months was more effective than 18 months of TAU alone. We conducted a single-blind randomized controlled trial. Participants were people with first-ep...
Article
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Background: Maternal health is critical to the health and well-being of children and families, but is rarely the primary focus of pregnancy and birth cohort studies. Globally, poor maternal health and the exposure of women and children to family violence contribute to the perpetuation and persistence of intergenerational health inequalities. Obje...
Article
Objective Assess the mental health, physical health, cognitive and language development of 10-year old children in families where mothers have reported intimate partner violence (IPV) compared with children with no reported IPV exposure. Design Prospective pregnancy cohort. Maternal report of IPV (Composite Abuse Scale) at 1, 4 and 10 years. Mater...
Article
Background Young people who grow up in out of home care have higher risk of poor mental health outcomes than peers who grow up with their family‐of‐origin. Interagency collaboration is an important service‐level intervention to improve access to mental healthcare. However, few descriptions of collaboration provide guidance about collaboration betwe...
Article
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Aim We evaluated the acceptability, usability and safety of Kindred, a novel online intervention for carers of young people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) using a pre–post pilot trial design. The secondary aim explored whether Kindred use was associated with clinical improvements for caregivers on measures of burden of caregiving, stres...
Article
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Background and Purpose Becoming a parent can be an exciting and also challenging transition, particularly for parents who have experienced significant hurt in their own childhoods, and may be experiencing ‘complex trauma.’ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Aboriginal) people also experience historical trauma. While the parenting transition is...
Article
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Background In light of emerging evidence questioning the safety of antidepressants, it is timely to investigate the appropriateness of antidepressant prescribing. This study estimated the prevalence of possible over- and under-treatment with antidepressants among primary care attendees and investigated the factors associated with potentially inappr...
Book
This book discusses psychiatric disorders among women in a manner that is relevant to clinical practice and keep cultural and social realities in perspective. The book is important in the face of rapidly changing conditions globally (including better education and more opportunities for work for women); challenges such as migration, war and violenc...
Article
Youth with experience of out-of-home-care (OoHC) typically have poorer mental health than their peers in the general population, and lack opportunities to contribute to service planning. Promoting mental health through leadership training may improve young people's mental health and facilitate system change. The Bounce Project is a pilot youth-lead...
Article
Young people in out of home care (OoHC) typically have worse mental health outcomes than peers who grow up within a family of origin. Innovations to improve the mental health of this group have tended to focus on pathology rather than mental health promotion and prevention of mental illnesses, and are often costly and challenging to implement. This...
Article
The aim of the study was to examine sex differences in self‐reported psychological distress, behavioural and emotional problems, and substance use in young people living in out‐of‐home care (OoHC). One hundred seventy‐six young people aged 12–17 years (females 53.4%) in OoHC in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia, were interviewed. Participants compl...
Article
As foster and kinship carers are central to the lives of looked after children, it is important to recognise their unmet needs and the impact of these on the caring task. This article explores these issues by applying a hierarchy of needs to the foster and kinship care context, drawing on the perspectives of those involved. A group of Australian fo...
Article
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Background: Two common barriers to help-seeking are lack of awareness of appropriate services, and low mental health literacy. The headspace awareness campaigns are designed to address these factors. Aims: To examine whether distance from a headspace centre affects community awareness of headspace, and whether general awareness of headspace change...
Article
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This paper presents findings from an interdisciplinary project undertaken in Victoria, Australia, investigating the barriers and facilitators to supported decision-making (SDM) for people living with diagnoses including schizophrenia, psychosis, bipolar disorder, and severe depression; family members supporting them; and mental health practitioners...
Article
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Introduction Child maltreatment and other traumatic events can have serious long-term physical, social and emotional effects, including a cluster of distress symptoms recognised as ‘complex trauma’. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Aboriginal) people are also affected by legacies of historical trauma and loss. Trauma responses may be triggere...
Article
Background Specialist early intervention (SEI) service models are designed to treat symptoms, promote social and vocational recovery, prevent relapse, and resource and up skill patients and their families. While the immediate benefits of SEI are clear, and have been demonstrated, the long-term impact of SEI on illness course is less clear. The Firs...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives Children exposed to social adversity—hardship as a result of social circumstances such as poverty or intergenerational trauma—are at increased risk of poor outcomes across the life course. Understanding what promotes resilient outcomes is essential for the development of evidence informed intervention strategies. We conducted a systemati...
Article
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Background and aims Child maltreatment is a global health priority affecting up to half of all children worldwide, with profound and ongoing impacts on physical, social and emotional wellbeing. The perinatal period (pregnancy to two years postpartum) is critical for parents with a history of childhood maltreatment. Parents may experience ‘triggerin...
Data
PRISMA 2009 Checklist: Parenting after a history of childhood maltreatment: A scoping review and map of evidence in the perinatal period. (DOC)
Data
Assessment of study confidence using modified GRADE criteria. (DOCX)
Data
Perinatal awareness, recognition, assessment and support for parents who have experienced maltreatment in their own childhoods: Overview of reviews. (DOCX)
Data
Table of excluded studies and reasons for exclusion. (DOCX)
Data
Healing the past by nurturing the future: Early support for parents who have experienced complex childhood trauma—A scoping review protocol. (DOCX)
Data
Risk of bias assessment criteria. (DOCX)
Article
Full-text available
Introduction: Specialised early intervention services have demonstrated improved outcomes in first episode psychosis (FEP); however, clinical gains may not be sustained after patients are transferred to regular care. Moreover, many FEP patients remain socially isolated with poor functional outcomes. To address this, our multidisciplinary team has d...
Article
Full-text available
Objective: Men present with complex, diverse and often contradictory expressions of masculinity that are relevant to their health status. This article argues for the inclusion of masculinity into mental health curricula in Australia. Masculinity mediates health outcomes by influencing help seeking and engagement with treatment. Conclusion: An onlin...
Article
Background: Supporting the decision-making of mental health service users fulfils professional, ethical and moral obligations of mental health practitioners. It may also aid personal recovery. Previous research on the effectiveness of supported decision-making interventions is limited. Aims: The study aims to explore from several perspectives th...
Article
Full-text available
Healthcare systems redesign and service improvement approaches are adopting participatory tools, techniques and mindsets. Participatory methods increasingly used in healthcare improvement coalesce around the concept of coproduction, and related practices of cocreation, codesign and coinnovation. These participatory methods have become the new Zeitg...
Article
The majority of children and young people removed from the care of their parents by the state of Victoria, Australia, reside in foster or kinship care. These children have experienced a broad range of adverse conditions and are up to 4 times more likely to experience problems with mental health than their mainstream peers. This paper draws on the p...
Article
Full-text available
Supported decision-making (SDM) is a principle guiding mental health service provision, which aims to improve people’s ability to make informed decisions about their care. Understanding diverse individual needs is vital to its success. Based on 29 narrative interviews with people diagnosed with mental illness in Australia, we examine how participan...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Background Complex childhood trauma follows prolonged or multiple traumatic events, and is often related to interpersonal violation within a child’s care giving system. Indigenous families may be a particularly vulnerable group due to legacies of historical trauma. Complex trauma can have profound and ongoing impacts on development and physical, so...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives: The aim of this study was to identify the most effective interventions for early intervention in psychosocial disability in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) through an evidence review. Methods: A series of rapid reviews were undertaken to establish possible interventions for psychosocial disability, to develop our unde...
Article
The commentary reflects on the definition of spirituality and religion and further implications for the practice of psychiatry. These include the possibilities to partner with spiritual and religious practitioners to support education and research, provide access to care for people with or at risk of mental ill health, and also consider how to the...
Article
Background Depression trajectories among primary care patients are highly variable, making it difficult to identify patients that require intensive treatments or those that are likely to spontaneously remit. Currently, there are no easily implementable tools clinicians can use to stratify patients with depressive symptoms into different treatments...
Technical Report
Full-text available
This report summarises the findings of an Australian Research Council Linkage project which sought to document the experiences, views and preferences of people experiencing severe mental health problems, family members and other informal supporters, and mental health practitioners about supported decision-making, treatment and recovery in Australia...
Article
Objectives: Hope is an important part of recovery from severe mental illness. Our aim was to assess hope and its correlation with symptoms in people living with severe mental illness. Methods: We used validated questionnaires to assess hope, social isolation, quality of life and symptoms among 60 people living with severe mental illness. Result...
Article
Full-text available
The child protection system in Australia includes out-of-home care (OoHC) for children and young people at risk of harm and neglect. In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people are 9 times more likely to be placed in care than non-Aboriginal young people (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2015). Australia...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Young people in out-of-home care are more likely to experience poorer mental and physical health outcomes related to their peers. Stable care environments are essential for ameliorating impacts of disruptive early childhood experiences, including exposure to psychological trauma, abuse and neglect. At present there are very few high qua...
Article
Full-text available
Family members caring for a young person diagnosed with the onset of mental health problems face heightened stress, depression, and social isolation. Despite evidence for the effectiveness of family based interventions, sustaining access to specialist family interventions is a major challenge. The availability of the Internet provides possibilities...
Article
Across the developed world, efforts are being made to identify and develop effective interventions that will reduce the prevalence and severity of mental health problems among children and young people in out-of-home care. Foster and kinship carers have been identified as critically important in this process. In order to develop an understanding of...
Conference Paper
Background: Specialist early intervention (SEI) service models are designed to treat symptoms, promote social and vocational recovery, prevent relapse, and resource and up skill patients and their families. While the immediate benefits of SEI are clear, and have been demonstrated, the long-term impact of SEI on illness course is less clear. The Fir...
Article
Background Raising a child with a disability can place significant strain on the mental wellbeing of parents and carers. This study developed a mental wellbeing resource specifically for parents and carers of children and adolescents with a disability. Methods Interviews with 20 parents and carers and 13 health and disability service professionals...
Article
Full-text available
This paper focuses on the importance of involving patients, families and other carers when offering and deciding on treatment and care options. It highlights the activities of international and national organisations in facilitating collaboration with patients and families in treatment, research, teaching and training related to mental healthcare.