PEOPLE are being encouraged to overcome the stigma ofmental health through a series of new audio self-help guides.

In what is believed to be a first for the UK, advice and information can be heard on CD or via the internet through the initiative in Middlesbrough.

Issues tackled by the 16 guides include stress, sleeping problems, post-natal depression and anxiety.

The guides, which are read by bothmen and women, have been sent to all doctors' surgeries in Middlesbrough and are available from every library in the town.

Karen O'Rourke, patient information centre co-ordinator at Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, said: "We are delighted to be working in partnership with Middlesbrough Hearts and Minds on this project.

"As a trust, we aim to make mental health and wellbeing information accessible to the general public, either by hard copy or by using more innovative techniques such as audio files."

In Middlesbrough, 43 per cent of jobs are dependent on the public sector and it was said to be the place least able to withstand the Government's funding cuts in a study carried out by Experian. The money advice team at Middlesbrough Council has experienced its busiest year to date, helping people with debts worthmore than £4m in the year to April.

In addition, research carried out by Fairbridge Teesside, a charity which helps disadvantaged youngsters, found that one in five children and young people admitted to being lonely and four per cent said they never felt happy.

Lol Butterfield, joint social inclusion officer for Middlesbrough Council, who once suffered from depression himself, helped develop the audio guides.

He said: "There are growing numbers of people who choose audio formats to access information and there are those whose mental, or other, ill health limits their ability to read for a long time."

Research also suggested that men use the internet as a means to get health information, he added.

"The audio guides are the first major source of free to access and downloadable information on common mental health problems in audio format in the UK, " he said.

The audio guides can be found on the Middlesbrough Council website at middlesbrough.gov.uk/mentalhealthvoice