Determinants of effective workplace mental wellbeing programs in the Australian mining industry
Creators: name: KRISHNAN VIJAYAKUMARAN, Manju
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 420308
subject: Health informatics and information systems

description: This study, by adopting a program evaluation approach, examined the determinants of the perceived effectiveness of workplace mental wellbeing programs in the Australian mining industry. In workplace, a number of programs related to mental wellbeing have been implemented/exercised throughout the world; however, their effectiveness is somewhat questionable. This current study selects mining industry as the context because of its substantial impact of the unique features (e.g., fly-in-fly-out, long shift pattern, and boom and bust cycle) on the workers' mental health. In the mining industry, one way the companies improve the mental wellbeing of the workers is by running workplace mental wellbeing programs. However, less is known about the determinants of the perceived effectiveness of these workplace mental wellbeing programs. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand the determinants of perceived effective workplace mental wellbeing programs (hereafter referred to as programs) and the factors leading to the identified determinants in the Australian mining industry. This study applied a mixed-method approach by combining the outcomes from qualitative phase (i.e., ontological mapping, case study) and quantitative phase (i.e., survey). 
 
The findings of this study indicate that the determinants of perceived effective workplace mental wellbeing programs are addressing mental health stigma, increasing mental health awareness, and regular evaluation of program.  Furthermore, the findings supported the crucial role of stigma around mental health. The significant factors leading to mental health stigma appear to be help-seeking behaviour and community connection. Also, the factors that lead to mental health awareness are knowledge of mental health and access to programs. Similarly, regulatory influence has a significant effect on the regular evaluation of programs. Moreover, the mediation tests confirm that stigma mediates the relationship between work-related stress and perceived program effectiveness. 

As the main theoretical contribution, our study integrated the two most popular theories in the current domain, namely the program theory and the social cognitive theory, and showed that the integrated model possesses better explanatory power than the models applied separately. Our study also offers practical implications for managers in program development as it offers critical insights into conceptualising, implementing, and evaluating programs. As for limitations, this study collected data from an industry (i.e., mining) in a single country (i.e., Australia). Also, the mental wellbeing programs in the Australian mining industry can be in different forms and very niche with different program objectives and hard to reach respondents. The objective of this study was not to evaluate every program individually, rather holistically understand the determinants and the contributing factors to the identified determinants for perceived program effectiveness.