TROPHI welcomes partnerships with researchers and others within universities, hospital health services and other academic organizations who share our aims and are committed to working together to improve primary health care and patient outcomes. We want to encourage research and translation to be undertaken within the TROPHI region that is relevant to general practice and aligned with the region’s needs.
TROPHI welcomes partnerships with researchers and others within universities, hospital health services and other academic organizations who share our aims and are committed to working together to improve primary health care and patient outcomes. For more information on the process for partnering with TROPHI click here.
PiP is a world-first individually tailored online parenting intervention to reduce adolescents’ risk for depression and anxiety problems. PiP has undergone two randomised controlled trials and two national implementation trials, and been found to improve parenting skills, parenting confidence, and adolescent mental health outcomes. Through a partnership with headspace National Youth Mental Health Foundation, PiP is now available through the headspace website: https://headspace.org.au/online-and-phone-support/partners-in-parenting
PiP+ is the therapist-assisted version of PiP, designed for parents whose adolescent is experiencing clinical-level difficulties with depression and/or anxiety. We have evaluated PiP+ in a double-baseline open-label trial and found it to be associated with improvements in parenting competencies, parenting confidence, parent-adolescent attachment, family functioning, and parent psychological distress.
PiP-P2P takes PiP+ and asks: “What if PiP+ is delivered by peers with lived experience of supporting a young person with mental health difficulties?” Together with parents, family peer workers, clinicians, and supervisors from youth mental health services, we have co-designed an adaptation to the coaching element of PiP+, to be delivered by a new workforce of ‘PiP-P2P family peer coaches’ embedded in primary-healthcare services like headspace centres. We are currently finalising the training package and development of the trial website, in preparation to evaluate this new program in the new year. In 2026, we will conduct a randomised controlled trial comparing the new peer-coached version of the program (PiP-P2P) to the self-guided version of PiP. Contact pip-p2p@monash.edu to find out more.
TROPHI are key collaborators on a successful MRFF funded study with the University of Melbourne and East Melbourne PHN, to translate and implement the Link-Me+ model of mental health support into general practice. Link-Me is an evidenced-based, prognostic service navigation model of care that has been successfully tested through a randomised controlled trial. The trial demonstrated that prognosis-based matching of individualized interventions reduces psychological distress in patients with anxiety or depressive symptoms, particularly in those with severe symptoms, and is associated with better outcomes when patients access the recommended treatment.
The Link-Me+ program of work over the next 2 years will be a collaboration between TROPHI, the Centre for Digital Transformation of Health, The ALIVE National Centre for Research Translation and East Melbourne PHN, to optimize the model of care for everyday practice, through co-design principles, drawing on the experience and expertise of consumers, carers, GPs and digital health researchers. The model will be evaluated for its effectiveness and acceptability within the TROPHI region and will be supported by a TROPHI Translational Fellow.
CREATE (Collaborative Registrar Education and Training Enhancement) has emerged from the TROPHI collaboration between The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) and the Departments of General Practice at Monash and Melbourne Universities. TROPHI, based in Outer Eastern Melbourne, is forging strong links with key regional health services. This 2-year project, funded by an Education Research Grant from the RACGP aims to use a participatory process to co-design and test innovations to optimise general practice (GP) training at two critical stages: in-hospital experience and the transition to the first GP term.
A scoping review with a realist review lens has been conducted to better understand and apply local and international evidence-based strategies for improving GP training. Notably, the review identified the benefits of early exposure to GP settings. Researchers have begun interviewing key stakeholders to gain further insights into the needs and contextual factors affecting junior doctors. These interviews aim to clarify needs and identify opportunities to create initiatives that will support junior doctors during their transition to general practice. These activities align with our broader goals of improving the early stages of GP training, ensuring a better transition for registrars into their first GP term, and ultimately improving the quality of primary health care delivery in the TROPHI region.
PrimaryBreathe Australia is a collaborative approach to managing breathlessness in the community. PrimaryBreathe Australia is a five-year research program led by Monash University’s Prof Natasha Smallwood and supported by TROPHI. This research program will involve the development of new tools, technology and education to improve the recognition and management of chronic breathlessness within primary care.
This research will culminate in a clinical trial across metropolitan and regional general practice and residential aged care sites across Victoria. In this trial, patients with chronic lung diseases and persisting breathlessness will be randomised to receive usual care or a nurse-led breathlessness education and support program (focusing on non-drug strategies) over 2-3 visits.