Our Research
We pride ourselves in being
evidence-based and research-driven to deliver lasting impact.
Evidence and Research
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Our research is powered by our direct link with the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) and its collaborators such as Flinders University.
All of our solutions are developed and tested by academic researchers and are actively used to drive academic research into mental health and wellbeing.
Learn more about our research-driven approach to our solutions below by reading summaries of our studies, watch videos that explain the results or get directed to the full papers where they are available already.
Australia's wellbeing
at a glance
The mental health and wellbeing in Australia is not readily captured on an ongoing basis. There are some studies investigating mental illness, but there is a lack of data on anything beyond distress and pathology.
This is why we set out to report on our data on mental health on an ongoing basis. You can access the 2022 report below.
Our Mental Health during Covid​
The COVID-19 pandemic took a lot of us by surprise. It introduced a lot of unknowns, including what the impact of social restrictions would be on the mental health and wellbeing of the general population. This lack of reliable data caused problems for decision makers. In order to provide quick insights into the immediate short-term impact of the pandemic on Australians, The Be Well Tracker was used to run a brief study finding clearly that markers of mental health and wellbeing were significantly down in the early days of COVID-19.
Student Mental Health
The Be Well Tracker has been adopted by a large number of individuals and organisations, which allows us to research differences in mental health outcomes between various population groups.
One such group is university students, who historically have been known to be at higher risk of mental health problems. We have to date conducted four measurement waves showing that at all four moments, students show significantly lower mental health and wellbeing. This provides further evidence for the status of university students as a high-risk group for mental health problems.
The results on the first measurement wave have been published with subsequent articles planned.
The Design of the Be Well Plan
We went all-out in designing the Be Well Plan rigorously. We relied on a best-practice intervention development framework (Intervention Mapping) to guide the design of the Plan.
We used co-design, were guided by behaviour change frameworks and relied on an iterative design process to land on the Be Well Plan.
It means that every little aspect of the Be Well Plan is planned and driven by theory and scientific evidence.
For those interested: the entire process is documented in a scientific manuscript, which you can access using the button below.
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The Foundation of the Be Well Plan
At the core of the Be Well Plan lies an extensive literature review into effective ways to build wellbeing.
We used a ‘systematic review and meta-analysis’ to investigate the global literature on psychological interventions.
We found 429 studies studying more than 53,000 showing clearly that there are a wide range of ways to build wellbeing.
The Be Well Plan activities are based on the findings of this review. Watch the video to learn more about the findings or click the link to go straight to the paper.
Effectiveness of the Be Well Plan
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The Be Well Plan to date, has been tested in two scientific studies:
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pre-post study, and
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a randomised controlled study.
Both studies clearly demonstrate that the Plan significantly improved a wide range of mental health outcomes.
These include wellbeing, resilience, distress due to depressive symptoms, anxiety and stress, and cognitive flexibility to name a few. You can access both papers using the buttons below.
Feedback on the Be Well Plan
96% of training participants were either satisfied or very satisfied with the training offering.
A total of 85% of participants complete the training - when training is provided on a voluntary basis.
We continuously ask our program participants for feedback.
We don’t just do this at the program-level, but we ask for feedback per session and topic. This way we keep improving each individual component of the plan going forward.
This the SAHMRI building in Adelaide, locally called the 'Cheesegrater Building'
Contact us to discuss how we can help you with your workplace wellbeing strategy.