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A Case For The Decriminalization Of Simple Possession Of Narcotics In Mississippi, Stroud Tolleson

Honors Theses

Through its incarceration of simple possession offenders, Mississippi is failing to acknowledge the severity of addiction and importance of mental health. In this paper, I will examine Mississippi’s history of opinion and policy on drug use. In order to gain a better understanding of addiction and Mississippi’s criminal justice system, I interview several individuals with experience in varying aspects of these issues. Mississippi has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the United States, with stringent laws regarding the possession of narcotics. Mississippi’s mental health resources have been deemed unconstitutionally deficient on more than one occasion, and addicts are …

Shy Or Anxious? Examining The Efficacy Of School-Based Interventions For Childhood Social Anxiety, Samantha Neuhaus

Honors Theses

Social anxiety disorder and shyness share many overlapping features, leading to debate over where they become distinctive from each other. The theory of a shyness and social anxiety continuum has been suggested, depicting shyness on one end and social anxiety disorder as the more severe and maladaptive opposite end. Considering additional factors such as comorbidity and cultural differences, school based interventions can be implemented as a preventative and treatment measure for social anxiety across the continuum. Multiple intervention methods are utilized across school based interventions, and of eleven interventions specifically analyzed, it was found that the interventions are most often …

The Toll Of Our New Reality: Analyzing College Students’ Health In A Pandemic & Attitudes Towards Covid-19 Vaccinations, Ciara M. Ochoa

Honors Theses

Since the beginning of March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected several populations in the United States with many different hardships. With COVID-19 came the threat of a new disease, job insecurity affecting a large amount of our population, increased financial instability, and misinformation surrounding the new COVID-19 virus, the pandemic left an overwhelming majority of the United States population feeling mentally, physically, and overall exhausted. This study focuses on the already vulnerable and often overlooked population that is college students, and the aim of this study is to better assess the physical and mental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic …

Triumphing Over Trauma: Addressing Past Experiences And Mental Health Following Resettlement In The United States, Tyler Greenwood

Honors Theses

Refugee populations are exposed to an unusually high number of traumatic events in their lifetimes that have the potential to cause long-lasting psychological harm. Millions of people are forcibly displaced by international conflicts, ethnic genocide, targeting of political dissidents, climate disasters, and countless other traumatic events. For the small fraction of refugees who are resettled in wealthy nations such as the United States, they are fortunate to leave behind the harmful and often violent places which they are fleeing from, but they are also leaving behind their families, friends, homes, and traditions. During and following resettlement, refugees continue to face …

College Students’ Use Of Social Media And Its Effects On Well-Being During Covid-19, Virginia Pressly

Honors Theses

Beginning in the late 2000s, social media began its ascent into mainstream media. Today, it has become a part of our daily routines. Due to its prevalence and nature, social media has been directly linked to deteriorating mental health in teens and young adults for some time. Many of the studies previously conducted studied Millennials. However, today’s generation of young people, Gen-Z, has a very different relationship with social media and the internet. In 2020, when the world was hit with the COVID-19 pandemic and most work and school went virtual, social media became that much more prevalent in our …

Exploring Mental Health & Covid-19: How A Pandemic Could Become America's Next Mental Health Crisis, Ashley D. Shofner

Honors Theses

A pandemic can be described as an epidemic disease that has spread over a large geographical area and has become prevalent in numerous sectors of the globe. In 2020, just over 100 years since our last major pandemic, the 1918 Influenza outbreak, the global community is facing yet another threat: COVID-19. While an individual’s physical health has consistently been of concern, research has failed to adequately consider the other dimensions of health. Among these additional dimensions of health is mental health and psychosocial wellbeing.

Pandemics and emerging infectious diseases have become modern influencers of mental health patterns. By analyzing the …

Mental Health Stigma Among Pharmacy Professionals And The Need For Continuing Education, Victoria Dale

Honors Theses

Background. The mental health stigma of pharmacists, the most accessible health professional, can have a significant impact on not only how these patients seek treatment, but also their quality of life (Mey et al., 2013). This study intends to explore mental health stigma among pharmacists and also examine the need for continuing education focused on mental health.

Methods. This study was a descriptive cross-sectional study that employed a self-administered online survey. The subjects were pharmacist members of the Mississippi Pharmacists Association (MPhA). Demographic characteristics were collected. The level of mental health stigma among the respondents was examined using the Community …

University Of Mississippi Student Perceptions Of The Relationship Between Stimulant Use And Mental Health, Elizabeth Mccutcheon

Honors Theses

College students are situated in a perfect storm for stimulant misuse and mental health issues, while living admits a mental health crisis of never-before-seen proportions, in combination with a global pandemic and the normal amount of stress associated with a university course load. It is important to address college student’s perceptions of the risks and benefits of stimulant use in order to see if they realize the severity of the problem of abuse and address it. The addiction of examining mental health in relation to stimulant abuse can provide new insight to the motivation behind the rise in stimulant abuse …

20 Things, Reann Parker

Honors Theses

20 Things is a short young adult novel that explores a variety of topics and themes, from mental health, recovery, and self discovery to race, love, and friendship. Beginning with a high school girl named Halle waking up in a hospital after a suicide attempt, the novel is a coming of age story about the help Halle receives and what she goes through in trying to find reasons to keep living. The novel is divided into ten chapters: “Waking Up,” “Going Home,” “Arriving,” “Being Honest,” “Keeping the Faith,” “Soul Searching,” “Willingness,” “Maintaining,” “Checking In,” and “Living.” Each chapter represents the …

The State Of The Asylum: Assessing Institutional Legitimacy Through An Examination Of Its Clientele, Peter Dranow

Honors Theses

While mental asylums have long been a point of intrigue and folklore in Western culture, they have also been the subject of bitter debate in academic and medical circles. Brought to the forefront of sociology with Erving Goffman’s benchmark work, Asylums; Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (1961), the question of whether mental institutions in America were–and are–fundamentally curative or custodial institutions has yielded a dualistic interpretation of the past, present, and future. Whereas the psychiatrist and liberal historian might characterize America’s failed asylums as externalities of progress and, in some cases, poor policy, social …

Mental Health Related Benefits And Barriers Of Exercise Among College Students, Madison Hamilton

Honors Theses

It is very clear that college can be a very stressful time. These high levels of stress can lead to negative coping mechanisms. However, there is a positive coping mechanism: exercise. The purpose of this study is to examine mental health related benefits of exercise and discuss any differences between males and females. This study examined raw data from a previously done study with a large sample size of college students (n=629). The data included their answers to the Exercise Benefits/Barriers Scale (EBBS), along with other measures of fitness. The EBBS consists of forty three statements that the participants rated …

The Effect Of Gender Roles And Priming On Mental Health Self-Stigma And Attitudes, Sarah Competiello

Honors Theses

Prior research suggests that gender roles and gender are both related to mental health self-stigma and attitudes toward help seeking. In the present study, I explored whether espousal of gender roles and priming people with mental health stigma would interact to predict levels of mental health self-stigma and attitudes toward help-seeking. I also tested whether gender moderated this relationship. Some participants were primed with fake Twitter posts that promoted mental health stigma, while others were exposed to neutral Tweets. All participants then responded to questionnaires assessing espousal of gender roles, levels of mental health self-stigma, attitudes toward help-seeking, and gender …