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

SUBMITTER: Watling D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8199956 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature