Mental health first aid 

Summary:

A recently published MHFA-based intervention proved ineffective in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of secondary school teachers. What can we learn from this large-scale cluster randomised controlled trial? 

As recently as August 2022, NHS Employers was encouraging trusts to ‘Recruit mental health first aiders and wellbeing champions into your organisation’¹. And according to our research in autumn 2019, around half of private and public sector organisations with in-house OH services were using mental health first aid (MHFA) training for selected staff². Evidence available at that time suggested that while MHFA training was effective in boosting trainees’ knowledge of mental health and their confidence in providing support, research was lacking on whether workplace MHFA training resulted in improved wellbeing among the workforce generally, or better mental health outcomes for the recipients of the intervention. Given its popularity, high-quality studies were badly needed to establish whether workplace MHFA could deliver meaningful benefits… 

 John Ballard, editor 

Author: Ballard J

Tags mental health

Occupational Health at Work December/January 2022/2023 (vol. 19/4) pp03

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