Workforce strategies to address children's mental health and behavioural needs in rural, regional and remote areas: A scoping review

Abstract

Introduction: Children living in rural, regional and remote locations experience challenges to receiving services for mental illness and challenging behaviours. Additionally, there is a lack of clarity about the workforce characteristics to address the needs of this population.

Objective: To scope the literature on the rural, regional and remote child mental health and behavioural workforce and identify barriers and enabling mechanisms to mental health service provision.

Design: A scoping review utilising the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology. A database search was undertaken using Medline, CINAHL, PsycINFO, ProQuest and Scopus to identify papers published 2010-2023. Research articles reporting data on mental health workforce characteristics for children aged under 12 years, in rural, regional or remote locations were reviewed for inclusion.

Findings: Seven hundred and fifty-four papers were imported into Covidence with 22 studies being retained. Retained studies confirmed that providing services to meet the needs of children's mental health is an international challenge.

Discussion: The thematic analysis of the review findings highlighted four workforce strategies to potentially mitigate some of these challenges. These were: (1) The use of telehealth for clinical services and workforce upskilling; (2) Role shifting where non mental health professionals assumed mental health workforce roles; (3) Service structure strategies, and (4) Indigenous and rural cultural factors.

Conclusion: A range of potential strategies exists to better meet the needs of children with mental health and behavioural issues. Adapting these to specific community contexts through co-design and production may enhance their efficacy.

Keywords: rural mental health issues; rural workforce issues; workforce; youth health.