ACMHN 2025

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

The conference theme, Mental Health Nursing – Our Identity, Influence, and Impact, recognises that mental health nurses themselves have had to advocate to have their specialist skills recognised. We need to #SayOurName as we are not generalised nurses or mental health clinicians, we are mental health nurses. However, we must grow a diverse workforce with a common yet broad identity, who are influential in progressing mental health nursing, and can positively impact the lives of people with mental health needs and the mental healthcare sector.

When mental health nurses are recognised and practice within their optimal scope of practice, we influence government policy, health care reform, lead services, work outside traditional health care settings, and are highly regarded.

We encourage mental health nurses to reflect on how inclusive we are as professionals and as leaders and consider if our current models of practice and service provision provide accessible and equitable care to all persons. Services models must create safety and value lived experience of consumers to allow them to fully participate in their treatment decisions without facing judgement or fear.

Mental health nurses have the capacity and obligation to support all individuals and communities. However, we must grow a diverse workforce who are prepared to provide equitable care, stop racism, and address stigma.

SUBMIT ABSTRACT

Important dates

Call for abstracts: Now open!
Abstract information session: More details coming soon
Call for abstracts closes: Friday 14 March 2025
Abstracts reviewed: March to April, 2025
Successful presenters contacted: Late April 2025
Early bird registrations close: Wednesday 30 April 2025 (all presenters/authors required to be registered by this date).

Before submitting your abstract

Familiarise yourself with the conference themes and presentation types (listed below)

Prepare a 350-word abstract, abstract aims and learning objectives and save in an easily accessible place. Your abstract submission will be completed via a text box only, so we recommend you have your abstract content ready to 'copy and paste' into the portal

Create an account in the call for abstracts portal, and follow the instructions to submit your abstract. Abstracts can be saved as a draft, but must be finalised in order to be assessed for inclusion in the program

You may submit more than one proposal under the same account.

Abstract themes

Theme

Sub-themes

Identity

First Nations mental health nurses
Psychotherapy in mental health nursing
Mental health nursing specialities across perinatal, child, adolescent, older persons, and adult
New and unique mental health nursing roles
Credentialing
NDIS

Impact

Physical health
Sexual and gender diverse people
Digital mental health
Dissemination and adoption of research findings
Student experience
Education
Near misses and missed care

Influence

Mental health nursing leadership
Peer workforces
Suicide prevention
Reducing and eliminating restrictive practices
Engaging with the media
Contributing to policy and debate
Government

Scope of practice

Intellectual and developmental disabilities
Drug and alcohol
Mental health nurses in private advance practice
Clinical supervision
Nurse Practitioners
Primary care

Presentation types

The following presentation types will be offered at ACMHN 2025. The Scientific Committee reserves the right to re-allocate your presentation to the best suited presentation type.

Presentation type

Time allocated

Details

Oral presentation

15 min plus 5 min Q&A

May be more than one speaker.
No additional time will be allocated.
Presentations may be based around (but not limited to): research findings, case studies, industry trend exploration, demonstration of best practice, new strategies, etc.

Lightning presentation

8 Min plus 2 min Q&A

The goal of lightning presentations is to articulate a topic in a quick, insightful, and clear manner. These efficient talks are intended to gain the attention of the audience, communicate key information, and allow for several presenters to share their ideas in a brief period of time.
Lightning presentations are brief which requires the speaker to make their point clearly and rid the presentation of non-critical information. This causes the audience to be more attentive to the speaker and gain a broader array of knowledge from the presentations given.
The number of slides is significantly less than a traditional oral presentation. Speakers must be careful not to read the details which they include in slides.

Poster presentation

Not applicable

A visual and interactive display of your work as per your abstract.
Presenters will be required to stand by their poster at a nominated time to speak with interested delegates.

ACMHN 2025 Awards

If you would like to put your abstract forward for an ACMHN 2025 abstract award, please make sure to read the abstract award criteria to ensure your selected presentation type is appropriate.

Research Award

To be eligible for the Research Award, the abstract must report on a research project that is completed, or a completed section of a program of research, and that has ethics approval, or is a systematic review, or quality improvement project. Poster presentations are not eligible for this award category.

Stan Alchin Award

The Stan Alchin Award is presented to the best clinical paper presented by a clinician or group of clinicians. To be eligible for the ACMHN Stan Alchin Award it is a requirement that presenters are clinicians at the time of presentation. Poster presentations are not eligible for this award category.

General Award

The General Award is presented for the best paper presented reporting on management/administration/policy issues, project work, Masters, PhD or other research that does not meet the criteria for the Research Award and the Stan Alchin Award. Poster presentations are not eligible for this award category.

Meryl Caldwell-Smith First Time Presenter Award

This award is dedicated to Meryl Caldwell-Smith AM, former Lifetime contributor to the College and is presented to the individual who is presenting for the first time outside of their organisation/place of work/tertiary institution. The presenter must be the first author on the presentation and the and present the majority of the content. Poster presentations are not eligible for this award category.

Lightning Presentation Award

Poster Award

All posters are eligible for the Poster Award and will be assessed against the following criteria:

Contribution to mental health knowledge is demonstrated
Contribution to mental health practice is demonstrated
Visually appealing, legible font and not crowded
Content is clear, concise and original
Relevance to mental health nursing and implications for mental health practice is shown

Abstract review process

The ACMHN uses a blind review process for all abstracts submitted for consideration the 49th International Mental Health Nursing Conference and strives to include high quality research and clinical papers. This process is overseen by the Scientific Chair, Dr Cathy Daniel.

All abstracts satisfying the basic requirements will be subject to a blind review by at least two independent reviewers, who will have no knowledge of the name of the author/s or of the other reviewer/s. Members of the ACMHN Board are not eligible to participate in the review process.

Reviewers apply a simple set of criteria to each abstract, which are then given a numerical ranking. Abstracts are then tabulated according to their numerical ranking and submission date i.e. abstracts which attract the same ranking are then ordered according to the date of submission, with contributions submitted first, listed first. Offers are made to presenters from the highest ranking abstract down, and a program is developed.

Where a presenter is not able to participate, or withdraws their abstract from the program, an offer is made to the next thematically appropriate presenter down the list to take their place in the program.

Presenters are advised that the 49th International Mental Health Nursing Conference provides delegates with a program that reflects and leads contemporary mental health nursing practice. As such, all abstracts are to be presented using appropriate terminology for people who experience mental health issues. Terms such as 'mentally ill people', 'the mentally ill' and 'case/subject' and 'the mentally ill case' are not accepted. Rather, descriptors should be person-centered, such as 'people/person who experience XYZ', 'consumer', 'service user', 'person with disability, gender diverse, sexually diverse', 'person with a lived experience' or 'client'. Abstracts which do not meet this criteria will not be eligible for review.

Submitting your abstract

All abstracts must be submitted via the call for abstracts portal. Follow the below steps to submit your abstract:

Prepare a 350-word abstract and save in an easily accessible place. Your submission will be completed via a text box only, so we recommend you have your abstract content ready to 'copy and paste' into the portal. Your 350-word abstract should cover the content of the presentation, key issues explored and who should attend the presentation and why. Do not include any references
Prepare a 100-word presentation summary in plain English (non-scientific)
Click SUBMIT ABSTRACT at the top of this page and create an account in the call for abstract portal. Note, you will need to create a new account for the 2025 conference (your 2024 conference account is no longer active)
Follow further instructions in the portal to complete your abstract submission
You will receive a confirmation email once your abstract is submitted for review
Abstract's may be saved as a draft, to be finished at a later date, but it must be finalised in order to be considered in the review
You may submit more than one abstract all under the same account.

For a successful abstract, you should highlight something new, innovative and thought provoking and the format encourages discussion and active participation amongst delegates. Your speakers should be engaging, informative and confident.

If your abstract is accepted you must agree to register and pay the Early Bird Registration price.

Abstract submission close on Friday 14 March 2025.

Submission guidelines

Online submission is the only method of abstract submission
Submissions can be saved as a 'Draft' in the abstract portal but must be finalised to be considered. Abstracts still in 'Draft' will not be considered for the program
Abstracts submitted for presentation will be published exactly as received. Abstracts may be revised for clarity, spelling, or grammar
It is strongly recommended by the Scientific Committee that your abstract submission be reviewed by a second person, such as a peer, colleague or mentor, who can provide constructive feedback and ensure all abstract guidelines have been met
You may submit more than one abstract all under the same account
Abstracts will only be accepted as 350-word text format abstracts. We recommend writing your abstract in Word and saving to your desktop prior to starting the submission process, then 'copy and paste' the abstract content into the relevant section of the abstract
No references are included in abstracts
All presentations should be primarily in English. If English is not the first language of speakers/projects please provide details on how you will provide access for delegates (i.e., translator, subtitles…). If you need assistance with this, please email acmhn@conlog.com.au
All speakers must attend and present at the conference in person
It is the responsibility of the presenter/author to ensure that the abstract is submitted correctly. For assistance with submissions, contact acmhn@conlog.com.au
It is the responsibility of the presenter/author to ensure their abstract explains how it relates to the themes
Where there is more than one presenter all correspondence will be sent to the person who submitted the abstract
The Scientific Committee reserves the right to allocate the presentation to best suit the program
The invitation to submit an abstract does not constitute an offer to pay travel, accommodation or registration costs associated with the conference. Similarly, no presenter fee is paid to successful presenters
If your abstract is accepted, all speakers agree to register and pay the Early Bird registration price.