Digital Commons Network^™

How The Covid-19 Pandemic Has Affected Physical Activity, Sleep And Mental Health In University Students, Faculty And Staff And To Examine The Relationship Between These Variables, Zachary Parisi

Health, Human Performance and Recreation Undergraduate Honors Theses

Background: Increased physical activity has been shown to be beneficial in decreasing stress. This project will expand on this knowledge while also studying college students, a demographic that has been less studied. This study will also examine the impact of COVID-19 on these variables. COVID-19 changed many peoples’ activities of daily life, and possibly physically activity levels, due to public health measures such as lockdowns and remote learning. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected physical activity, sleep, and mental health in university students, faculty and staff and to examine the relationship …

Increasing Depression And Anxiety Awareness In High School, Hannah Pesina

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This project was focused on the lack of mental health awareness curriculum in high school. Due to students having lack of education in high school, this created many barriers between students and academics, as well as students receiving the proper resources. This project focuses on adolescents in STEM. When adolescents gain the proper knowledge and awareness on Depression and Anxiety, they are more open to being able to identify the warning signs within ones self as well as being able to promote mental health well-being.

Changing The Game: A Review Of Collegiate Coaching And Its Effects On Mental Health, Yohanan Nekrasov

Senior Honors Theses

Mental health has become an increasingly important topic within the sports world over the past decade, with athletes raising awareness on both the professional and collegiate levels. The coach plays a key role in supporting the mental health of his or her athletes, but some coaching methods may run counter to that objective. Research was conducted through a literature review, examining the psychological trends within athletics and the ways coaches can adapt their methods. The accompanying print and audio feature stories will aim to help deliver this research to the public by educating coaches on this important issue, including interviews …

Providing Trauma-Informed Care For Children In The Foster Care System, Hannah Genn

Senior Honors Theses

Foster parents need to be trained in trauma-informed approaches and how to identify previous traumas in order to understand how their foster children’s past experiences of abuse or neglect manifest as mental disorders, social challenges, or behavioral concerns. Warning signs for depression or post-traumatic stress disorder should be noted, and youth should be taught how to foster healthy relationships in order to prevent substance abuse, irresponsible sexual activity, or academic failing. Foster parents can provide additional support by creating reasonable expectations for their foster children, teaching effective coping skills, and connecting with available resources.

Virtual Reality And Its Impact As An Intervention On Meaningful Occupations For Individuals With Mental Health Diagnoses, Alison S. Benson

Occupational Therapy Capstone Presentations

The purpose of this capstone project was to administer occupation-based and therapeutic interventions based on virtual reality and evaluate their impact on participation in meaningful occupations by individuals with mental health diagnoses. I completed this 14-week capstone experience at the Professional Rehabilitation Consultants, an outpatient occupational therapy mental health clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota. The interventions that I tested were administered using strategies from principles of the Model of Human Occupation (MOHO) and the Recovery Model. I created intervention modules based on published instructions on the use of VR equipment and information gathered from research on the VR applications. I …

The Canine-Campus Connection: Roles For Dogs In The Lives Of College Students, Mary Renck Jalongo

Purdue University Press Book Previews

No abstract provided.

Heavy Is The Head, Elizabeth Wiles

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

"Heavy is the Head: how my mental illness made me a writer" is a collection of poetry about a journey in and through mental illness. It engages the social action issue of mental health awareness. "Heavy is the Head" tells a story of mental illness, how it was accepted, how it was used to improve, and how it can pave the road to self-acceptance.

Correctional Officers' Response To Stress: An Exploration Of The Associations Between Violence And Trauma Exposure, Coping Mechanisms, And Ptsd., Katie Lorraine Hughes-Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study examines correctional officer coping mechanisms and whether they impact the likelihood of an officer developing PTSD symptoms. Additionally, research questions focus on whether problem-focused or emotion-focused coping mechanisms moderate the relationship between exposure to trauma and PTSD symptoms. The data for the current dissertation comes from a larger National Institute of Justice grant determined to examine mindfulness as an intervention for correctional officer PTSD within Kentucky Department of Corrections. Approximately 245 officers from seven adult institutions participated in the study and completed a lengthy survey. Main variables for the current analysis include two dependent variables, both of …

Effectiveness Of Services And Interventions Provided To The Older Adult Population, Michelle Maldonado

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The older adult population is set to increase enormously in the United States. With a larger older adult population, there will also be an increased demand for services. This study worked to identify the effectiveness of mental health services being provided to older adults. Given that service providers are often provided minimal resources, providing efficient services assists with purposefully allocating resources. The study used the post positivist paradigm. The researcher developed a set of questions and conducted phone interviews with mental health service providers of older adults. After transcription, qualitative data analysis was completed to identify meaningful connections. The data …

Perception Of Mental Health Among The Latinx Community, Jessica Garcia, Erica Valdez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the perception of mental health among the Latinx community to identify factors contributing to the underutilization of mental health services. This exploratory study conducted qualitative interviews with 16 Latinx individuals. Participants were recruited through a non-probability snowball sampling method. Qualitative data analysis revealed themes, subthemes, and reoccurring concepts through three main focus areas: overall knowledge of mental illness and services, perception toward reasons for mental illness, and respondents’ feedback to increasing utilization of mental health services. Major themes that surfaced in this study on the perceptions toward mental illness reflected culture such …

Professional Quality Of Life Of Mental Health Practitioners Doing Trauma Work, Ashley Larios, Ana Campos Chagolla

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

A practitioner’s reaction to client trauma can have both positive and negative impacts on the individual’s professional quality of life as well as the quality of services provided to the client. Professional quality of life embodies a practitioner’s compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue, burnout, and vicarious trauma. While past research has focused on factors that negatively impact professional quality of life, the proposed research aimed to explore what individual and agency factors help to positively increase professional quality of life. The study utilized a mixed methods approach, which included the participants scores on the Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL) as …

Psychosocial Challenges On Latinx Caregivers, Brenda Perez, Ingrid Lopez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The purpose of the research disclosed in this study is to describe the experiences and hardships caregivers in the Latinx community face. In order to understand the psychosocial challenges that Latinx caregivers experience, the study compared Latinx to non-Latinx caregivers in order to answer the question, “What psychosocial challenges do Latinx caregivers experience?” A convenience sample of twelve caregivers were interviewed. The qualitative approach used in this study allowed a better insight into the problem which could bring public awareness and provide better resources to this population. The exploratory study was directed by a series of questions which were open-ended …

Levels Of Engagement In Mental Health Services Regarding Minorities, Karla Salazar Rendon

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study focuses on analyzing if the level of engagement when receiving mental health services affects how many mental health providers an individual has. Although mental health impacts everyone, minorities encounter barriers such as language, transportation, and residential segregation. Obstacles such as these discourage individuals in regards to pursuing mental health services. Minorities make up a significant amount of the U.S. population: however, they are underrepresented in the mental health field. The challenges they encounter need to be addressed to provide efficient services. This study includes male and female participants over the age of 18 in San Bernardino County. The …

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 …

Increasing Mental Health Awareness Among Collegiate Student Athletes, Josh Kollman

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This paper attempts to increase mental health awareness among student-athletes in college. Two players from the men’s basketball team at California State University, Monterey Bay participated in an interactive presentation regarding the impact that stress, anxiety, and injuries have on mental health and how to cope. The impacts are performance-related as well as impacting social life, academics, and relationships. The participants filled out forms and took a short quiz to see if they understood the impacts and were able to identify coping strategies. Results showed that they fully understood the effects that stress, anxiety, and injuries have on mental health …

Mental Health In Elementary School Children, Mayte Lomeli

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Due to the Global Pandemic of 2020, there have been a lot of changes in society. These changes have presented challenges to people’s mental health. Two of these changes have been the need to Shelter-in-Place and learn remotely through online and video conferencing. This capstone project is a case study investigating how remote learning has affected elementary school-aged students' mental health and what might be done to support elementary school-aged students with their mental health. The investigation takes the perspectives of 2 teachers, 2 parents, and 2 students living in South Monterey County. The purpose of this project is to …

Academically And Mentally Exhausted: Looking Through The Challenges Caused By Distance Learning, Guadalupe Gonzalez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The focus issue addressed in this Capstone Protect is on the academic and mental health challenges students faced due to distance learning. This is important because a students’ academic performance and mental health status are very important in becoming strong and well adjusted? individuals. An evidence based argument offered is that having stable and reliable internet access plays a key role in a student’s academic performance. The three primary stakeholder perspectives chosen were two parents, one parent teacher, and three students because considerations of the issue should include the perspectives of the ones affected by this transition and from those …

Social Emotional Learning As A Universal Upstream Approach To Youth Suicide Prevention: A Secondary Data Analysis Of A Prevention Program Evaluation, Maria Amaris Knight

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Background: Nevada has had consistently high rates of youth suicide in the past decade with 21.2 deaths by suicide per 100,000 population (ages 15-24), over the national rate of 14.5 deaths per 100,000 in 2019. National strategies, state agendas, and best practices in the field prioritize research on upstream strategies to prevent suicide. One such strategy is the use of social emotional learning (SEL) programs for youth to help increase and enhance protective factors against suicide, helping them to cope with negative life events. Research has identified leading outcomes of SEL programs as the improvement of attitudes, behaviors, and academic …

Improving Therapeutic Communication In Mental Health Nursing: A Quality Improvement Project, Patricia A. Nill

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Over 46 million adults in the United States (U.S.) live with a mental illness. Locally in Nevada, the psychiatrist to patient ratio is approximately 700:1, and patients are seen primarily in the inpatient setting, if seen at all, due to the wait average of 85 hours in the hospital emergency rooms for access into mental health hospitals or specialty units of a general hospital. Moreover, costs for mental health mood disorders alone are estimated at over seven million dollars annually. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) opined the need for change in healthcare to redesign practice and clinical communication with patients …

Student Well-Being Matters: Academic Library Support For The Whole Student, Marta Bladek

Publications and Research

In response to a marked increase in the prevalence and severity of mental health problems among college students over the last decade, colleges and universities have been expanding their well-being initiatives and programs. No longer limited to health services departments, the support of student well-being has been taken up by multiple campus units, including academic libraries. As well-being has been shown to impact academic outcomes, the well-being initiatives libraries develop fit in with their commitment to enhance learning and student educational experience overall. A comprehensive review of wellness interventions in academic libraries, this article presents findings on student well-being and …

Teenagers’ Utilization Of Social Media In Taking Care Of Their Mental Health During The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Phenomenological Study, Ralph Anthony C. Bautista, Justin Andrei P. Ibe, Julio Amir D.R. Tampis, Aaron Shane N. Warain

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress

With the ongoing pandemic, mental health concerns have been observed to be on the rise. Lockdowns have prompted many, especially the youth, to primarily use social media for communication and for addressing their mental health issues. However, past studies merely investigated the positive and negative effects of social media on mental health in general; there have been scarce resources that detail how these platforms are used for mental health concerns during the pandemic, particularly among teenagers in the Philippine context. Hence, the study aims to examine the experiences of teenagers in using social media platforms in dealing with their mental …

Educator Wellbeing During Covid-19: Caregivers Vs. Non-Caregivers, Elizabeth Larsen, Judy Gagnon, Yana Davis, Nicole Hudson

Thinking Matters Symposium

The phenomenon of the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the format of public education, putting stress on the educational system and its teachers. This research study aims to understand the impact of COVID-19 on the role of teachers in Maine, specifically focusing on the added responsibility that parents may experience while simultaneously meeting professional obligations. Researchers posed the question: “What is the relationship between caregiving responsibilities and emotional wellbeing of teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic among public school teachers in Maine?” Participants from K-12 public schools around the state were recruited through direct contact or via building administrators who distributed …

Caregiver Incarceration, Stigma, & Mental Health, Megan West, Megan Madden, Ramsey Wilson, Brandon Pelletier

Thinking Matters Symposium

Parental incarceration has adverse effects on children and young adults socially, physically, and mentally (Phillips et al., 2002). Caregivers with either past or present incarceration experiences increase adolescents’ tendency to correlate behaviors with exposures to traumatic events (Kautz, 2017). Our research question for this project is, “what is known about perceived stigma, mental health symptoms, and caregiver incarceration?” A systematic literature review has been conducted to determine various themes that arise in research examining stigma, mental health symptoms, and parental incarceration. The group has been conducting this research through twenty-eight separate databases in order to compare themes that have been …

Exploring Mental Health Experience In Individuals Living With Temporomandibular Disorders, Wafaa Safour, Richard Hovey

Patient Experience Journal

Despite the evidence supporting deteriorating mental health because of temporomandibular disorders (TMDs) conditions, there is limited evidence of TMD patients' experience regarding how their mental health is affected by the disorders. As a sequence of these conditions, TMD patients suffer from physical and mental complications, not to mention the loss of food enjoyment. In this study, we aim to explore TMD patients' lived experiences who had changed their dietary habits concerning their mental health. Six participants were interviewed to answer open-ended questions during semi-structured interviews regarding their mental health experiences with TMD-related food routine changes. These interviews were held face-to-face …

Media Use During Covid-19: An Investigation Of Negative Effects On The Mental Health Of Asian Versus White Americans, Jessie M. Quintero Johnson, Muniba Saleem, Lu Tang, Srivi Ramasubramanian, Emily Riewestahl

Media Studies - All Scholarship

The role of media use on mental health distress is particularly concerning during the COVID-19 global pandemic. The vulnerabilities to and experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States are greatly influenced by racial/ethnic inequalities. The COVID-19 pandemic may present unique mental health challenges for Asian Americans because of racial targeting and limited access to and engagement with mental health care. This present investigation examines whether the association between media use and mental health distress is more pronounced for Asian Americans for whom media messages that document and promote anti-Asian racism are likely to be especially salient and influential. …

Effectiveness Of An Online Intervention Combating Mental Health Stigma On Adolescent Help-Seeking Behaviors, Chelsea Krayecki

Counselor Education Capstones

Mental health stigma has been shown to be a barrier to seeking help for mental health concerns. This is especially true for adolescents due to important developmental characteristics. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) (2021), depression is one of the major causes of mental health concerns and disability among adolescents. In addition, the WHO (2021) also states that mental health conditions account for 16% of global burden of illness in people ages 10-19-years-old. The current pandemic has only increased these concerns, as social, emotional, and mental well-being has been impacted by the pandemic (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, …

Strategies Exemplary Mental Health Leaders Use To Stay Grounded While Working With Veterans, Audrey Dangtuw

Dissertations

Purpose. The purpose of this explanatory mixed method study was to identify and describe what exemplary mental health leaders in Puget Sound area mental health facilities serving veterans do to maintain their physical, emotional, intellectual, social, vocational, and spiritual health based on the six dimensions of Rosen's (2014) healthy leader model.

Methodology. An explanatory mixed methods approach was selected to allow the triangulation of data to increase the validity of the findings. The study analyzed quantitative surveys to identify how exemplary mental health leaders rate their use of grounded leadership strategies and qualitative semi-structured interviews to identify strategies exemplary mental …

Associations Between Family-Based Stress And Dietary Inflammatory Potential Among Families With Preschool-Aged Children, Valerie Hruska, Nitin Shivappa Mbbs, Mph, Ph.D., James R. Hébert Scd, Alison M. Duncan, Jess Hines, David W. L. Ma

Faculty Publications

Chronic stress is known to influence dietary choices, and stressed families often report poorer diet quality; however, little is known about how family-based stress is linked with dietary patterns that promote inflammation. This study investigated associations between family-based stress and the inflammatory potential of the diet among preschool-aged children and their parents. Parents (n = 212 mothers, n = 146 fathers) and children (n = 130 girls, n = 123 boys; aged 18 months to 5 years) from 241 families participating in the Guelph Family Health Study were included in the analyses. Parents reported levels of parenting distress, depressive symptoms, …

Mental Health Support And Advocacy For Undergraduate Bgsu Students In Wood County, Oh, Robert Lince

Honors Projects

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health has been a topic receiving significant focus on college campuses across the United States. Thus, it is important for all undergraduate college students to understand the available organizations and facilities that will provide the most quality and effective mental health care. With BGSU undergraduates already facing academic and social pressures, in addition to the financial and other hardships brought on by the pandemic, it is imperative that students are aware of resources both on campus and in the local community so that their needs can be met appropriately and in a …

Scholarly Manuscript: Deficiencies In Memory And Effective Education Of De-Escalation Techniques In Mental Health Settings, Balraj Bajwa

DNP Qualifying Manuscripts

Objective: To appraise and evaluate evidence recognizing the lack of effective staff education on de-escalation techniques, the impact that this creates on nursing practice, and staff perceptions on de-escalation methods and techniques in acute care inpatient and/or outpatient mental health settings.

Methods: Three databases were searched (CINAHL, PubMed, and PsycINFO) to identify articles/reviews which focused on de-escalation techniques and training. Additionally, five journals were also reviewed to help with the search process. Specific inclusion criteria were used to streamline the search process and to help identify articles/reviews which were primarily focused on the desired objective. Five different articles …