The world-first program has been developed by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute’s Dr Sophie Reid, who said yesterday the initiative could be the first step in turning around the mental health crisis on the Border.

A trial conducted by Gateway Community Health in partnership with the Border Division of General Practice is recruiting 40 people to take part.

Five medical practices in Albury-Wodonga are supporting the program which sees participants use an electronic diary to report daily experiences including mood, stress levels, drug use, exercise and eating patterns.

Responses are sent to a website which assesses each participant’s mental wellbeing and then produces an individual report card for a doctor.

“They find it quite a threatening or difficult situation with a GP to have that sort of conversation,” Dr Reid said.

“On average GPs have eight minutes per patient to see somebody and getting that sort of information out of a young person is quite difficult.

“We want to bridge the gap between a young person and a GP.

“Mobile phones are a young person’s favourite accessory and 95 per cent of kids have a mobile phone.”

The program is activated four times a day on the phone by a sound similar to an SMS and is focusing on young people aged 14 to 24.

Dr Reid said monitoring the mental health of young people was harder in the country than city.

“In the Melbourne metro areas we could provide a list of 200 psychologists who are capable of working with young people, but what you find in the rural areas that work often falls to a GP to manage the lion’s share of mental health.”

Dr Reid said research showed GPs were missing 50 per cent of cases of depression through their practices due to time pressures.

She said recent mental health issues including hospital emergency departments being ill-equipped to handle serious cases and patients being held in police cells underlined the seriousness of the issue.

“Early psychosis is rough and we are talking about people who are at significant risk of harming themselves,” she said.

“There are predictors of going into early psychosis like depression, withdrawal from social situations, lack of hygiene and care and they are some of the things our program picks up.”

“Dianne” has already participated in the program after suffering anxiety attacks.

“It was a great way of tapping into the technology we already have,” she said.