Mental and Social Health Commons^™

Antipsychotic Medication Administration In Oregon Assisted Living/Residential Care Settings: Analyzing An Action Situation, Sarah Dys

Dissertations and Theses

Antipsychotic medication use (APU) in assisted living and residential care (AL/RC) settings is an under-studied and controversial health policy issue. APU in older adults with dementia is associated with an increased risk of falls, hospitalizations, and early mortality. I operationalize the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework using a situational analysis approach, an extension of grounded theory methods, to explore the APU in Oregon AL/RC settings. Regulatory deficiency citations, Oregon AL/RC population data, and semi-structured interviews suggest that staff role clarity, organizational characteristics, and perceived agency influence decision-making around APU. AL/RC providers and caregivers are forced to simultaneously balance and prioritize …

Addressing And Supporting Mental Health Today: Society-Wide And In Hospital Emergency Departments, Kira La Sage

University Honors Theses

Mental health has become one of the most pressing public health issues of the 21st Century. Westernized societies offer much of their attention to childhood obesity, to COVID-19, to undiagnosed and diagnosed Americans living with diabetes. America even sees extended U.S. Senate hearings focusing on opioid use and abuse. Each of these concerns legitimately commands public health official attention, but what the world does not see is any level of sustainable attention given to emotional and mental health crises affecting tens of millions in Westernized countries. Suicide, the most serious of mental health crises, has become the second leading cause …

Relationships Between Coping Mechanisms And Perceived Stress Of Portland State University Community Members Amidst Covid-19, Julie Goldman

University Honors Theses

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the coping mechanisms used by the Portland State University (PSU) community and their relationships to perceived stress.

Methods: A virtual survey composed of demographic questions, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS10), the Brief COPE, and two open-ended questions was distributed to the community. Data were collected from 231 respondents, mostly PSU students. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to compute mean PSS score, adaptive coping score, and avoidant coping score. Pearson correlations and t-tests were run to explore the relationship between perceived stress and coping data.

Results: Perceived stress …

Quarantine Ethics: From Past To Covid-19, Chrystal Barnes

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Annual Conference

Quarantines have been a preventative measure for reducing communicable disease spread for centuries. The method of implementation can vary widely and to some extent requires some level of judgement from enforcing powers, often state police power. As such, historically, some quarantines have been unfairly enforced based on discriminatory practices. COVID-19 has brought about the most widespread and extended quarantine in U.S. history, which makes evaluating the ethics all the more critical. In addition, it is well established that COVID-19 impacts have disproportionately caused harm to populations, such as those who are of a low socioeconomic status and people of color. …