The Orygen Youth Health Research Centre at the University of Melbourne commissioned the Social Research Centre to undertake a dual-frame telephone survey to measure aspects of mental health literacy and mental health stigma. The 2011 survey was the third in a series with previous surveys undertaken in 1995 and 2003. The overall survey design featured two main components. The main survey comprised a national sample of 6,000 persons aged 15 years and over with 4,500 of these interviews obtained from a fixed-line RDD telephone sample and 1,500 from a mobile phone RDD sample. The overall design also featured a separate survey targeting young people aged 15 to 25 years. This ‘Youth Survey’ comprised 1,800 interviews from a fixed-line RDD sample and 1,200 from a mobile phone RDD sample.

This paper will describe and evaluate the survey methodology and profile the respective samples. The paper will also cover differences in levels of psychological distress and mental health literacy of the landline and mobile phone samples. Mental health literacy being defined as ‘knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders that aid in their recognition, management and prevention.'