Abstract
The complex and dynamic nature of the out of hospital environment dictates a necessity to ensure paramedics are provided the opportunity to undertake education and training programs across a broad range of health issues and develop clinical reasoning skills to assess and manage patients with diverse presentations. Anecdotal evidence suggests that paramedics are not provided with the appropriate education and training in mental illness to provide best practice evidenced based care to their patients. It is estimated between 20-25 percent of ambulance calls are to patients presenting with a mental health crisis. This figure does not include patients who have a past history of mental illness and call for assistance for reasons other than mental illness. The aims of this study were to investigate: paramedic education and training in mental health care and identify criteria essential to mental health education, and the preparedness of Ambulance Tasmania (AT) paramedics to assess and develop a management plan for patients presenting with mental illness in the out of hospital setting.