The Initial Assessment and Referral (IAR) for Mental Health

The IAR Guidance for Mental Health and IAR Decision Support Tool (IAR-DST) was developed by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care. The IAR is designed for use by Australian health professionals when a person presents to primary care for assistance for their mental health, or when the health professional providing the service identifies the person may be experiencing possible mental health symptoms and/or psychological distress. Brisbane South PHN is supporting the implementation of the IAR-DST across the region.

The IAR is intended to assist Australian health professionals to decide the most appropriate level of care a patient will need across five levels of care in an Australian stepped care model.

The IAR Guidance documentation includes a suite of documents providing information about the IAR and how to use it appropriately and effectively with people of different ages who present to the Australian primary care system with mental health symptoms and/or psychological distress.

There are separate rating guides available for use with:

• Children (aged 5-11)

• Adolescents (aged 12-17)

• Adults (aged 18-64)

• Older adults (aged 65 and over).

Whilst the IAR uses age to indicate the overall appropriateness of each rating guide, the final decision about the most appropriate rating guide to use should be based on the clinical judgment of the user, considering contextual and developmental factors.

When using the IAR-DST, a person seeking mental health support has their experiences understood in the context of 8 holistic domains. The eight domains help to distil essential assessment information and amplify key signals (e.g. red flags) critical for decision-making. A person’s treatment needs, and recovery goals are understood and matched to a service type and intensity based on the least intensive and least intrusive evidence-based intervention that will likely lead to the most significant possible gain.