Zeitschrift für Evaluation: Issue Evaluation for Quality Assurance of a Project to Promote Mental Health

Quality assurance through evaluation is an important component of quality management in health promotion. Hence, the aim of this article is to show how an evaluation for quality assurance could be implemented in a project to promote mental health and what challenges occurred in this process. The initiative „Mental Health First Aid“ is based on a concept developed in Australia to promote mental health and has been implemented as (pilot) project in several Austrian federal states. The evaluation conducted as part of the quality assurance process aimed to investigate both the quality of the implementation of the project (structural and process evaluation) and the impact of the project (outcome evaluation). The article shows the importance and need of quality assurance for prevention projects to promote mental health. This is the prerequisite for projects in this area to be able to show what effects they achieve and what significance and benefits they have for the society.

Keywords
health promotion, mental health, quality development, quality assurance, evaluation