The uses of mental health telephone counselling services for Chinese speaking people in New Zealand: demographics, presenting problems, outcome and evaluation of the calls.

AIM: This study aimed to investigate the call profiles of a Chinese-speaking mental health counselling helpline service in New Zealand (Chinese Lifeline provided by Lifeline Aotearoa) and to evaluate the calls and explore the possible factors influencing the outcome of the calls.

METHOD: A random sample of 151 answered calls was involved. Descriptive analysis with appropriate statistical tests was used to analyse the client profile and outcome data.

RESULTS: The majority of the calls were made by female callers, aged between 21-60 both single and married. Top three presenting problems were: 1) mental health issues (82.1%); 2) family/partner relationship issues (47.0%) and 3) communication and related difficulties (45.0%). The majority of the calls (65%) ended after a clear decision in overcoming the issues made by the caller, with the help from the counsellor. Discussing mental health issues, grief and loss issues, and communication and related difficulties were shown to have influenced length of calls (p<0.05). Caller's age, frequency of calls, discussing relationship problems with family/partner, and physical problems were shown to have influenced the helpline counsellors' satisfaction of the helpfulness of the calls (p<0.05).

CONCLUSION: The service receives calls from callers with a wide range of demographics and a large variety of presenting issues. This study identified several important factors which influenced counsellors' satisfaction of the calls and the length of the calls.