Digital Commons Network^™

Systems Of Care For Addressing The Traumatic Impact Of Violence Exposure On Student Well-Being, Laurie A. Garo, Nakeshia Williams, Tiffany Hollis

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Our presentation addresses mental health needs of youth from concentrated poverty and exposure to violence. We describe the Systems of Care model and recommend a framework for implementation within school, family and community based settings. Topics include mental health, environmental trauma, poverty, and youth cultural violence. Target Audience: educators, school- and community-based counselors & support staff, social workers, and educational researchers.

Smoking Characteristics And Psychiatric Comorbidities Of Pregnant Smokers: An Analysis Of Quit4baby Randomized Controlled Trial, Shawn Chiang, Lorien C. Abroms, Jennifer M. Schindler-Ruwisch, Leah E. Leavitt

GW Research Days 2016 - 2020

Background: Text messaging or short message service (SMS) programs have been shown to be effective in helping adult smokers quit smoking (Abroms et al., 2014). However, to our knowledge, no prior research has examined psychiatric comorbidities associated with smoking in the text messaging context. The risk of smoking has been shown to increase as a function of the number of psychiatric illnesses with which a person is diagnosed (Aubin, Rollema, Svensson, & Winterer, 2012). The current study examined this association and other correlates of smoking-psychiatric comorbidity in a sample of U.S. pregnant smokers enrolled in Quit4Baby, a smoking cessation text …

Law Library Blog (March 2016): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Between Crazy And Fine, Annette Aguilera-Gonzalez

SURGE

As a young Latina, I grew up hiding the fact that I met with a therapist and that I suffered from depression and anxiety. Conversations about mental well-being or taking steps to cope with anxiety were non-existent in my community of friends and family. It was always a taboo topic, an area that we never touched. People were labeled as “crazy” and serious situations were swept under the rug. Seldom was I offered empathy or support. [excerpt]

Perceptions And Experiences Of Perinatal Mental Disorders In Rural, Predominantly Ethnic Minority Communities In Northern Vietnam, Daniel Abrams, Liem T. Nguyen, Jill Murphy, Younji Lee, Nhu K. Tran, David Wiljer

Dartmouth Scholarship

Background: Preliminary research has suggested that perinatal mental disorders (PMDs), including post-partum depression, are prevalent in Vietnam. However the extent to which these disorders are recognized at the community level remains largely undocumented in the literature. PMDs have also never been investigated within Vietnam’s significant ethnic minority populations, who are known to bear a greater burden of maternal and infant health challenges than the ethnic majority. Objective: To investigate knowledge and perceptions of PMDs and their treatments at the community level in a rural, predominantly ethnic minority region of northern Vietnam.

Local Health Departments’ Level Of Engagement In Population Mental Health Promotion, Jonathan Purtle, Ann C. Klassen, Jennifer Kolker, Rachel M. Peters, James W. Buehler

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

Background: Mental health conditions are highly prevalent in the U.S. and are associated with physical health problems. Federal initiatives recognize mental health as a public health priority, and local health departments (LHDs) have been identified as partners to promote population mental health. Little is known, however, about the extent to which LHDs address mental health or how LHD officials perceive mental health as a public health concern.

Purpose: To describe the cumulative level of LHDs’ engagement in activities to address population mental health and explore how LHD officials perceive their roles in promoting it.

Methods: Module 2 of the 2013 …

Mind-Full Love, Bruce Vermeer

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Developing and maintaining cognitive fitness is a lifelong process that, not unlike physical fitness, requires considerable self-discipline at every age."

Posting about loving and honoring God with our minds ­­­­­­­­from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/mind-full-love/

Digital Archive Of Mental Health Narratives, Elisabeth Anna Muldowney, Jon Balzotti

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Narratives have the power to help people understand experiences that are foreign to them. But narratives focusing only on a single dimension of a story have the potential to cause harm, as many popular depictions of eating disorders demonstrate. Common eating disorder narratives often correctly acknowledge that mental health challenges occur in result-driven communities. The category “result-driven” refers to environments that associate value and success with physically measurable achievements or unrealistic aesthetics. Some of these communities include dance, sports, acting, and modeling. Recent research has suggested categorizing religious groups with communities that potentially contribute to eating disorders.¹

Physical Activity: A Tool For Improving Health (Part 2—Mental Health Benefits), Patrick J. Gallaway, Nobuko Hongu

Journal of Extension

By promoting physical activities and incorporating them into their community-based programs, Extension professionals are improving the health of individuals, particularly those with limited resources. This article is the second in a three-part series describing the benefits of physical activity for human health: (1) biological health benefits of physical activity, (2) mental health benefits of physical activity, and (3) recommended amounts of physical activity for optimal health. Each part of the series is designed to help Extension professionals effectively integrate physical activity into community programs and motivate individuals to maintain an interest in being physically active during and after a program.

Where Does The Time Go? An Investigation Of Self-Reported Time Allocation, Cory Stanton

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Depression is recognized as a substantial contributor to the global burden of disease, as well as economic productivity. Behavioral activation has been shown to be an efficacious treatment for depression, drawing on the work of early behavioral theorists and research on the quantitative matching law. Recently, scholars have called for increased theoretical rigor in conceptualizing psychological health, as well as increased conceptual and methodological dialogue between basic and applied researchers. The present study examined the validity of a novel self-report measure of time allocation, an extension of the matching law. A cross-sectional sample of 204 undergraduate psychology students completed measures …

Hiv Risk And Psychological Distress Among Female Entertainment Workers In Cambodia: A Cross-Sectional Study, Carinne M. Brody, Pheak Chhoun, Sovannary Tuot, Khuondyla Pal, Siyan Yi

Background: In Cambodia, there has been an increase in entertainment work as a result of the breakdown of the traditional brothel-based sex industry, presenting new challenges to addressing the health issues and needs of people working in the entertainment industry. This study aims to identify factors associated with psychological distress among female entertainment workers (FEWs) in Cambodia.

Methods: A two-stage cluster sampling method was used to randomly select 657 FEWs from entertainment establishments in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap in April and May 2014 for interviews using a structured questionnaire. Psychological distress was measured using the General Health …

Association Between Social Integration And Health Among Internal Migrants In Zhongshan, China, Yanwei Lin, Qi Zhang, Wen Chen, Jingrong Shi, Siqi Han, Xiaolei Song, Yong Xu, Li Ling

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Internal migrants are the individuals who migrate between regions in one country. The number of internal migrants were estimated at 245 million in China in 2013. Results were inconsistent in the literature about the relationship between their health statuses and social integration. The main difference exists on how to measure the social integration and whether health statuses of internal migrants improve with years of residence. To complement the existing literature, this study measured social integration more comprehensively and estimated the internal migrants' health statuses with varying years of residence, and explored the associations between the migrants' social integration and health. …

Bosnian Refugees' Understanding Of Their Health And Well-Being In A U.S. Context, Irina Bransteter

ETD Archive

Two decades after the civil war in Bosnia, more than fifty percent of population is suffering from various war aftereffects. However, most studies focused on objective outcomes, including gathering data on quantity of affected individuals. Very few studies focused on exploration of the experience itself, as well as Bosnian refugees’ perception of their own health and well-being. The purpose of this study was to explore war and post-war experiences, as well as health and well-being of Bosnian refugees. Particular interest focused on the meaning making of their experience through personal narratives. Following the Qualitative Consensual Research analysis, seven domains emerged: …

Factors Associated With Polypharmacy And Excessive Polypharmacy In Older People With Intellectual Disability Differ From The General Population; A Cross-Sectional Observational Nationwide Study, Maire O'Dwyer, Jure Peklar, Philip Mccallion, Mary Mccarron, Martin C. Henman

Social Welfare Faculty Scholarship

Objectives: (1) To evaluate the prevalence of polypharmacy (5–9 medicines) and excessive polypharmacy (10+ medicines) and (2) to determine associated demographic and clinical characteristics in an ageing population with intellectual disabilities (IDs).

Design: Observational cross-sectional study.

Setting: Wave One (2009/2010) of the Intellectual Disability Supplement to the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (IDS-TILDA).

Participants: A nationally representative sample of 753 persons with ID, aged between 41 and 90 years. Participants/proxy reported medicines ( prescription and over the counter) taken on a regular basis; medication data was available for 736 participants (98%).

Main outcome measures/interventions: Participants were divided into those …

Forgiveness, Health, And Psychological Adjustment In Older Adults, Emily Elizabeth Standish

Wayne State University Dissertations

The overarching goal of this dissertation was to examine the relationships between forgiveness and physical and emotional outcomes in older adults. Data for the analyses was from the Religion, Aging, and Health Survey, a nation wide probability survey of older adults. Data were collected at two time points separated by three years, wave 1(W1) in 2001 and wave 2 (W2) in 2003. The main outcome measures used in the analyses included four forgiveness scales (conditional forgiveness, unforgiveness, conditional forgiveness by God, and unforgiveness by self/others), five mental health measures (self-esteem, life-satisfaction, optimism, depression, feelings of control, rumination), a self-rated physical …

Improving Health Outcomes In Persons With Sickle Cell Disease, Lori L. Vick

MUSC Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this compendium is to identify strategies that influence health outcomes of persons with sickle cell disease (SCD) by investigating available pain instruments, current use of genetic testing to personalize therapies, and the associations of psychosocial characteristics with quality of life. Problem: Suboptimal care for patients with SCD is associated with non-comprehensive pain assessment instruments, limited use of available genetic tests to prescribe the potentially most effective pharmaceuticals in a personalized plan of care, and the absence of national evidence-based guidelines for the psychosocial care of this population. Approach: The research designs used were an integrative review …

Construct Validity Of Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (Scl-90-R) And General Health Questionnaire-28 (Ghq-28) In Patients With Drug Addiction And Diabetes, And Normal Population, A. Ardakani, T. Seghatoleslam, H. Habil, F. Jameei, R. Rashid, A. Zahirodin, F. Motlaq, A. Masjidi Arani

Research Publications (2016 to 2020)

Background: Given that validity is the baseline of psychological assessments, there is a need to provide evidence-based data for construct validity of such scales to advance the clinicians for evaluating psychiatric morbidity in psychiatric and psychosomatic setting. Methods: This comparative cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the construct validity of the Malaysian version of the GHQ-28 and the SCL-90-R. The sample comprised 660 individuals including diabetics, drug dependents, and normal population. The research scales were administered to the participants. Convergent and discriminant validity of both scales were investigated by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) using AMOS. The Pearson correlation coefficient was utilized …

Prevalence And Predictors Of Substance-Related Emergency Psychiatry Admissions, M. Scott Young, Kathleen A. Moore

Mental Health Law & Policy Faculty Publications

Background: Individuals commonly present for emergency psychiatry services for reasons related to their use of alcohol or illicit drugs. This study assessed the prevalence of these phenomena and explored characteristics distinguishing emergency psychiatry admissions with versus without presenting problems related to substance use. Methods: Data included standardized emergency psychiatry intake interviews from 2,161 consecutive admissions to three hospital-based emergency psychiatry departments in Florida’s Tampa Bay area. Admissions were classified as substanceinvolved if substance use was ascertained to be related to the presenting problem(s). Cases with only substance-related presenting problems were classified as substance-only admissions. Descriptive statistics compared substance-involved admissions to …

Impact Of Stigma On Attitudes Towards Seeking Professional Psychological Help For Depression, Anna Marie Dierks

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Depression is the most common mental illness, affecting almost seven percent of Americans each year. Although mental illness treatment through professional psychological services has been proven to be effective, underutilization of these services is high. Underutilization of seeking help could lead to serious consequences, such as suicide. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among adolescents and young adults aged 15-34 years old and in 2013 the highest rates of suicide were among adults aged 45-64 years old. Stigma has been viewed as a barrier to seeking professional psychological help.

Two age groups were chosen for this research due …

Social Grief: A Grounded Theory Of Utilizing Status Updates On Facebook As A Contemporary Ritual, Celese Catania-Opris

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

The popular Social Networking Site, Facebook, offers its users the ability tocommunicate with others from all over the globe. Individuals can create a virtual identity for themselves enabling members to call, message, and locate others in a matter of seconds. The number of Facebook users appears to increase; yet, the number of members who die daily is not normally accounted. Facebook now permits the memorialization ofthe deceased’s profile. This allows members to continue commenting, sharing photos and videos, and visiting the deceased’s Facebook page. This trend led to the central question of this study, “What benefits, if any, are individuals …

Exploratory Two-Level Analysis Of Individual- And School-Level Factors On Truant Youth Emotional/Psychological Functioning, Richard Dembo, Jennifer Wareham, James Schmeidler, Ken C. Winters

Criminology Faculty Publications

Research on samples of truant adolescents is limited, with little known about mental health problems among truant youths. This study provided an exploratory, multilevel examination of mental health problems for a sample of 300 truant adolescents. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated a single factor of multiple mental health problems at the individual level, but the structure of these problems was not the same at the school level. A number of covariate effects were found at the individual level on the mental health factor. Further, youths attending middle school were more likely to report attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) problems than those …

Minority Student Perceptions Of Mental Health, Emily Camacho

The Journal of Undergraduate Research

The current study explored the use of mental health services by minority students at South Dakota State University (SDSU) using thematic analysis. There are numerous reasons that college students choose not to utilize counseling services even though they may be needed. For example, students may avoid counseling out of fear of cultural stigma associated with help-seeking (Ægisdottír et al., 2011). Further, minority students may be more likely to use non-counseling help services such as religious organizations or friends and family in place of formal counseling because they believe that counselors are racially biased, or that there is a lack of …

Becoming Adults: Trajectories Of Adult Identity Development Among Undergraduate Students With Implications For Mental Health, Jenna Shapiro

Master's Theses

One of the defining developmental processes that occur during the unique stage of emerging adulthood is the emergence of adult identity, or the subjective sense of adulthood. Adult identity has been hypothesized to grow gradually, linearly, and at different rates for subgroups of individuals over the course of this stage (Arnett, 2006; Côté, 2006). Differences have also been suggested to predict wellbeing and distress (Côté, 2006; Kroger, 1996; Kroger, Martinussen, & Marcia, 2010). The goals of the current study were to examine heterogeneity in adult identity development over four years in college and to examine differences in self-esteem and negative …

Neighborhood Disadvantage During Childhood : A Predictor Of Young Adult Mental Health, Ethan Minier

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Abstract

Association Of Religious Commitment And Perceived Stress Levels In College Students, Brianna N. Carter

Honors College Theses

Background: College students report a higher level of stress related to daily functioning (Kreig, 2013). First year students who report feeling overwhelmed has doubled in current years while colleges have reported an increase in the use of on-campus counseling services (up 8% over the past three years) (Kreig, 2013; American Psychological Association, 2014). Previous studies in older adult populations link religiousness to better mental health (Moreira-Almeida, Neto, & Koenig, 2006), suggesting that religion can be used as a coping resource when faced with stressful events (Hood, Hill, & Spilka, 2009). Utilizing the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping, this study …

Unlocking The Doors To Canadian Older Inmate Mental Health Data: Rates And Potential Legal Responses, Adelina Iftene

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article is based on a quantitative study investigating the quality of life of older Canadian prisoners. For this study, social science methodology was used to answer certain legal questions, such as: what are the mental health issues of older male offenders and how are these needs influencing the exercise of their legal rights? Are institutions prepared to deal with the increased needs of older offenders? If no, is this an infringement of this group's rights? In this article, the mental health problems of older offenders are first outlined. Second, the legal, policy, and institutional limitations in responding to these …

Exploring The Therapeutic Roles Of Santeria For Latinx Living In Florida, Amaris J. Santiago

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Mental health services within Latinx communities in the United States has been greatly underutilized. Seekers of mental health support face many barriers including internalized stigmas, misconception of mental health serves and low general knowledge of mental health and wellness. For many Latinx, culturally competent mental healthcare has lacked important elements to how Latinx interpret mental healthcare services. The use of Santería in many in Florida and the United States has supplemented gaps left by formal mental healthcare services. Santería has its own stigmas within Latinx communities were its practiced, forcing many Santeros and seekers to practice in private. Lack of …

Student Athletes And Factors That Determine Their Social Support Circle, Elizabeth Anne Gelhaus

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Research has shown that the risk of athletic injury increases with increased psychological stress and that social support can help reduce risk of injury. Collegiate athletic trainers spend a considerable amount of time with and build unique relationships with the athletes on whom they work with. However, no research is available on specific factors that cause an athlete to turn to an athletic trainer for social support. An electronic survey was developed and sent to 938 local collegiate athletes to determine if, how, and why student athletes utilize athletic trainers for social support. The results from this study found that …

Mental Health Of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Heterosexual, And Questioning Youth In Rural, Micropolitian, And Metropolitan Regions In Minnesota: Assessing Internalizing And Externalizing Self-Report Behaviors, Jessica Louann Jorgenson

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Individuals identifying as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and questioning or unsure are often at greater risk of developing psychopathology. Minnesota youth, grades 9 and 11, completed the Minnesota Student Survey in 2013. Data were analyzed to ascertain differences within the aforementioned sexual minority groups as well as comparisons to heterosexual youth on questions adapted from the Global Appraisal of Individual Needs Short Screener (GAIN-SS). The GAIN-SS consists of self-reported items regarding internalizing and externalizing behaviors. In the present study, bisexual youth reported the most externalizing behaviors and the fewest internalizing behaviors. Heterosexual youth reported the fewest externalizing behaviors, but the most …

The Physical Activity And Redesigned Community Spaces (Parcs) Study: Protocol Of A Natural Experiment To Investigate The Impact Of Citywide Park Redesign And Renovation, Terry T. K. Huang, Katarzyna E. Wyka, Emily Ferris, Jennifer Gardner, Kelly R. Evenson, Devanshi Tripathi, Gabriel Martinez Soto, Matthew S. Cato, Jon Moon, Julia Wagner, Joan M. Dorn, Diane J. Catellier, Lorna E. Thorpe

Publications and Research

Background: The built environment plays a critical role in promoting physical activity and health. The association between parks, as a key attribute of the built environment, and physical activity, however, remains inconclusive. This project leverages a natural experiment opportunity to assess the impact of the Community Parks Initiative (CPI), a citywide park redesign and renovation effort in New York City, on physical activity, park usage, psychosocial and mental health, and community wellbeing.

Methods: The project will use a longitudinal design with matched controls. Thirty intervention park neighborhoods are socio-demographically matched to 20 control park neighborhoods. The study will investigate whether …