Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Effect Of Clinician Competence And Religiosity On The Trainee Clinician’S Ability To Identify Problematic Sexual Behavior, Cody Butcher

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Models in psychology do not consider the concept of sex addiction the same way as other substance or behavior addictions. For example, sex addiction, which is not a DSM-5 disorder, is often assigned as a label to clients based off of high frequency of sexual behavior. Despite sex addiction not being a diagnosable disorder, sex addiction therapists are conducting treatment with people who identify as sex addicts. Due to this lack of a definition, previous research has found that clinicians may identify sex addiction in clients based on their own preconceived worldviews of what types of sexual behaviors or frequencies …

The Development Of Mental Illness Stigma: The Role Of Perceived Social Support, Social Proximity, And Help-Seeking Behavior, Emily Kathryn Reed

Online Theses and Dissertations

The current study sought to explore the relationships mental illness stigmatization may have with perceived social support, proximity, and help-seeking behavior. Based on findings from previously conducted studies, hypotheses were formulated in order to further analyze how perceived social support, proximity, and help-seeking behavior may impact an individual's tendency to stigmatize mental illness. 203 Eastern Kentucky students participated in this study to test these hypotheses. These participants took part in an online study that measured their perceived social support based on their family environment, their proximity to those with a mental illness or mental illness in general, their attitudes regarding …

I’D Rather Be A Slut: An Analysis Of Stigmatized Virginity In Contemporary Sexual Culture, Aja Renee Corliss

Senior Projects Spring 2017

The purpose of this study is to analyze and interpret what virginity loss means to young, cisgender women in present-day sexual culture. Based on qualitative interviews with 30 diverse college women, I found that virginity is a highly stigmatized identity. The stigmatization of virginity loss has been historically situated in regards to having sex before marriage; women faced backlash for not upholding virginal purity and for being too sexual. However, the shift to stigmatized virginity represents a radical change in sexual norms and culture; being labelled a virgin is often more stigmatized than being labelled a “slut.” In my analysis, …

Reducing Substance Abuse Stigma In Employment Application, Timothy W. Curran

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A history of substance use and having a history of legal charges can be a barrier to employment. Available research shows individuals with a criminal history of substance related charges have greater difficulty obtaining employment due to the presence of substance abuse stigma and criminal history stigma. Research also shows that employers with higher levels of fundamentalism and conservativism are more likely to negatively evaluate applicants with a criminal history of substance charges. Furthermore, available research demonstrates employers in rural areas are more likely to deny employment to an individual with a legal history of substance charges based upon higher …

Governmentality/Animacy/Mythology: A Biopolitical And Rhetorical Mosaic Of Hiv Stigma In A Time Of Prep-Aration, Brendan Geoffrey Aaron Hughes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since 1981, roughly 35 million people have died from the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), the end stages of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), and an estimated 39 million are living with HIV today. While various factors such as poverty, lack of education, and poor access to treatment and healthcare compound the epidemic across the world, the endemic in the industrialized west faces specific communication-based challenges to slowing the spread of HIV. Now classified as a "chronic manageable condition", an HIV diagnosis is no longer the death sentence of the early outbreak in the 1980's. A major factor in the …

Examining Preference Of Home-Based Telemental Health Among Rural Veterans, Paige Dixon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Rural veterans face significant disparities to health care that have resulted in lower physical and mental health related quality of life when compared to their urban counterparts (Weeks et al., 2006). Such disparities are further complicated by the six-fold increase in prevalence of mental health diagnoses among Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans (Seal et al., 2009). These rising rates are particularly relevant to rural veterans as they represent 41% of the overall Veteran Health Administration enrollees, but only 19% of the general population (U.S., Department of Veterans Affairs, 2012; U.S. Census Bureau, 2014). Rural veterans face three …

“I Wonder What You Think Of Me”: A Qualitative Approach To Examining Stereotype Awareness In Appalachian Students, Chelsea G. Adams

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

Historically, Appalachia has been stereotyped as being a culture bred in poverty and ignorance. Much research has shown that stereotyping reveals a pattern of behavioral change and an impact on psychological well-being for the stereotyped (e.g., Pinel, 1999; Woodcock, Jernandez, Estrada, & Schultz, 2012), and has largely been centered on race and gender (e.g., Byrnes, 2008; Tuckman & Monetti, 2011). Less is known about the development of culture-specific stereotypes such as those related to Appalachians – a highly stigmatized group (Daniels, 2014; Otto, 2002). The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of how adolescents in rural Appalachia …

An Educational Program About Living With Depression, Ngozi Gloria Okoro

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Depression is a common and disabling mental illness, but the loneliness, isolation, and poor quality of life associated with depression may improve with treatment. Depressive patients adhere to their treatment and experience better outcomes when their family members are involved with their treatment. At the project mental health facility, patients with depression had the highest non-compliance rate to treatment and no educational program existed for their families. This observation led to the current practice-focused question which examined how an evidenced-based educational program can be developed for family members or caregivers of patients diagnosed with depression. The purpose of this project …

Barriers To Mental Health Treatment For Refugees In Maine : An Exploratory Study, Hayley Fitzgerald

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

The purpose of this study was to explore the barriers refugees face when it comes to accessing mental health treatment in Maine. Research suggests that refugees underutilize mental health services throughout the United States, despite equal to higher rates of mental health symptoms when compared to the general population. To acquire data, eight refugees were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. Participants were asked to share about their perceptions of mental illness and mental health treatment, discuss coping mechanisms that they find useful, and offer suggestions for providers working with refugees. Major findings included that stigma, fear, language, and cultural …

Do College Students Perceive Stigma The Same Way Experts Do? An Experimental Test Of Lay Perceptions Of Body-Size Stigma, Andie Malterud

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Personal experience with weight-based stigma is negatively associated with selfesteem (Myers & Rosen, 1999). This study examined how self-esteem is affected by exposure to weight-based stigma communication that is directed at another person. Using Smith’s (2007a) stigma communication framework, I created a 2 (Stigma Level: high, low) x 2 (Gender of stigmatized person: male, female) x 2 (Body Size of stigmatized person: large, small) posttest-only experiment. Participants’ self-esteem was not impacted after viewing stigmatizing messages directed at another person. This suggests that selfesteem is more stable than some researchers indicate (Wagner, Lüdtke, and Trautwein, 2016). My results suggest that stigma …

Provider Perceptions Of People Who Inject Drugs And Harm Reduction Approaches, Ciara Devozza

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

People who use injection drugs (PWID) continue to face high rates of death and disease, further exacerbated by the ongoing opioid epidemic. Research indicates that stigma toward this population is high among health care providers, which is shown to result in poor health outcomes and ostracize these high-risk patients from treatment. In the U.S., the dominant substance treatment model is abstinence-based, despite evidence from around the world supporting use of harm reduction interventions which focus on goals to reduce the harmful impacts of drug use to individuals and communities. This quantitative study examined nurses’ attitudes toward PWID and nurses’ receptivity …

The Voices Of Survivors Of Suicide : Experiences With Forms Of Support After A Suicide Loss, Nicole Dietze

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to identify forms of support available to and utilized by survivors of suicide, to identify barriers to receiving support, and to gather suggestions and/or critiques regarding survivors’ experiences with the supports they received. In-depth interviews were conducted with 13 individuals who had lost a loved one to suicide at least one year prior to the interview. The interviews explored the participants’ experiences with accessing resources, formal and informal supports, negative experiences, and resource recommendations for other survivors of suicide. The findings from this study emphasized how coping with such a profound loss …

Unequal Treatment : Sociocultural Identities And Their Effects On Eating Diorder Treatment Access And Efficacy, Hannah NoëL Smith

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

The purpose of this study is to explore ways in which eating disorder treatment can be made not only more accessible, but more effective for clients who identify as people of color, lower-socioeconomic status (SES), trans and gender nonconforming, and people whose Body Mass Index (BMI) normal or higher at the time of treatment.

Data was collected using a survey, which was completed by 28 participants recruited through Facebook eating disorder recovery groups and Instagram. Participants were asked to describe their racial identity, gender identity, SES, and BMI, then reflect on the experience of seeking eating disorder treatment.

The findings …