CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION, AND PEDAGOGY article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1589608
This article is part of the Research TopicImplementing Mental Health Prevention and Promotion Programs: A Sustainable Approach - Volume IIView all 12 articles
HSN - Helping in Mental Distress: A New Emotion Focused Psychological First Aid Program
Provisionally accepted
Marina Scheele1*
Sandra Appel1Isabelle Rausch2
Martin Schecklmann1Jakob Klein1
Susanne_TRI Staudinger1Roger Schmidt2
Peter Michael Kreuzer1
Berthold Langguth1- 1Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Regensburg, Bezirksklinikum, Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany
- 2Study Center for Evangelical Youth Work Josefstal, Josefstal, Germany
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Psychological first aid programs aim to train lay people to help others who are experiencing a mental health crisis or developing mental health problems. The current article introduces the new German psychological first aid training program HSN. The acronym HSN stands for "Helfen in Seelischer Not" (helping in mental distress) but also for the action chain "hear, speak, network". The HSN program differs from other well-examined mental health first aid programs by (1) focusing primarily on emotions instead of disorders, (2) using a blended approach, combining face-to-face and online elements right from the start of the project and (3) a low-threshold approach with a course duration of two hours. Here we specify the HSN concept and report first results from a sample of 150 students. The participating students completed a self-report questionnaire before and after the course regarding their "confidence to help". The program demonstrated good feasibility without any relevant side effects. Participants completed specifically designed questionnaires before and after the course to evaluate their "confidence to help". On a descriptive level we observed an improvement of the averaged values of all questionnaire items after the course. These positive initial results merit the further development of HSN as a low-threshold psychological first aid program.
Keywords: Psychological first aid, Mental Health, HSN, Interpersonal emotion regulation, Emotion-focused, helping in mental distress, mental health education
Received: 27 Mar 2025; Accepted: 02 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Scheele, Appel, Rausch, Schecklmann, Klein, Staudinger, Schmidt, Kreuzer and Langguth. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Marina Scheele, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Regensburg, Bezirksklinikum, Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany
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