Sophie Kathryn, Youth Action Panellist, SpunOut and Caroline Hynes (Project Lead), Specialist Mental Health Pharmacist, Saint John of God Hospital
Monday, October 9th 2023:  Saint John of God Hospital, in partnership with SpunOut, has today launched a new digital platform to provide accessible information about mental health medicines for younger people.
YouthMed.Info is a one-stop-source for younger people seeking reliable information on mental health medicines, including how they work, the symptoms they help with, and potential side effects.
Caroline Hynes, Senior Pharmacist at Saint John of God Hospital and Project Lead for YouthMed.Info – ‘Younger people are underserved by mental health medicines information resources available today. We know that they seek information from online video platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. YouthMed.Info offers a reliable, supportive and informative space for younger people to learn about the medicines they have been or may be prescribed in a format that’s acceptable to them’.
‘The website currently hosts eight animated videos covering a variety of mental health medicines. As the project progresses, we will upload more content on other medicines, including those for younger children and their parents, as well as answering concerns younger people may have on specific side-effects.’
Ian Power, CEO SpunOut– ‘More and more, we hear from younger people with a mental health diagnosis as to how overwhelming they find it to understand the current information available on medicines, as it is targeted towards adults and is often a complex explanation of the medicines used to treat different conditions. Partnering with the team of mental health specialists supporting YouthMed.Info, we wanted to create a platform that younger people can access in a safe environment so that they can fully inform themselves and better understand the treatment prescribed to them.’
YouthMed.Info was developed entirely in-house by a volunteer group of clinical and academic pharmacists, consultant psychiatrists and nurses from the hospital, Saint John of God Community Services Lucena Clinic, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Edinburgh, and in collaboration with a focus group of young people via SpunOut, Ireland’s youth information and support platform.
For more information, please visit www.youthmed.info
