Clinical Practice Guidelines

It is important for health professionals to be able to accurately identify young people who are at risk of depression and to provide emotional support, referring young people for specialist help when necessary.

The Adolescents and Young Adults Clinical Practice Guidelines guidelines benefit general practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health professionals, nurses and primary health care workers. They are also intended for use by school counsellors, teachers, school psychologists and, importantly, young people, their families and friends.

Please note: As this publication is now more than five years of age it may no longer reflect current evidence or best practice.

• Download the Adolescents and Young Adults Clinical Practice Guidelines

Companion resources

In 2012, beyondblue commissioned an independent market research agency to evaluate the Guidelines. The evaluation involved consulting with health professionals, school counsellors, consumers and carers to assess how they used the Guidelines. Findings from the evaluation resulted in the development of companion/supporting documents.

The companion documents include a synthesis of the Clinical Practice Guidelines into an executive summary and two supporting guides: Engaging young people in health care and Assessment and management of depression in young people. These documents have been translated into an e-guide format to make it more accessible and user-friendly to health professionals, particularly general practitioners.

• Download Depression in young people – Executive Summary
• Download Assessment and management of depression in young people booklet
• Download Engaging young people in health care fact sheet
• Download Depression in young people: An e-guide for primary care health professionals

Given the high prevalence of perinatal mental health conditions during pregnancy and the year following the birth of a baby, beyondblue developed Australia’s first Guidelines for the treatment of perinatal mental health conditions.

The Guidelines, endorsed in 2011, assist health professionals working in primary care and maternity care. The Guidelines have also informed the development of an extensive range of companion resources for health professionals, women and their families.

The Guidelines were funded by state, territory and federal governments under the National Perinatal Depression Initiative (NPDI)

beyondblue wishes to advise that new Clinical Practice Guidelines are currently being developed by the Centre of Perinatal Excellence (COPE). The new guidelines, titled “Effective mental health care in the perinatal period: Australian Clinical Practice Guidelines” are expected to be released in late 2017.

A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was conducted to inform the development of the Perinatal Clinical Practice Guidelines. It includes a brief discussion of the methodology employed and the research questions used, and maps evidence summaries against recommendations.

The following mental health disorders were selected for inclusion in this SLR:

• depression
• anxiety
• puerperal psychosis
• bipolar disorder.

In the context of this review, the term 'perinatal depression and related disorders' refers to these four conditions only.

For more information on the SLR, see Appendix 3 of the Perinatal Clinical Practice Guidelines.

Download the comprehensive SLR

• Psychosocial Risk Assessment Tools (Q1–Q7) and Case Detection Tools (Q8–Q14)
• Psychological Interventions and Pharmacological Interventions (Q15–20)
• Community Awareness Programs (Q21)
• Programs Targeting Health Care Workers (Q22)
• Barriers to Interventions (Q23-Q25)
• Harms (Q26)
• Appendix 1: Key Tools Assessed in the Systematic review
• Appendix 2: Citations Excluded from the Tools Literature search
• Appendix 3: Citations Excluded from the Predictive Index Literature Search
• Appendix 4: Citations Excluded from the Interventions Literature Search
• Appendix 5: Summary of Interventions Section of the NICE Report
• Appendix 6: Citations Excluded from the Community Awareness Programs Literature Search
• Appendix 7: Citations Excluded from the Health Professional Programs Literature Search
• Appendix 8: Citations Excluded from the Barriers Literature search
• Appendix 9: Citations Excluded from the Harms Literature Search