Psychiatric and Mental Health Commons^™

Co-Designing Situated Displays For Family Co-Regulation With Adhd Children, Lucas M. Silva, Franceli L. Cibrian, Clarisse Bonang, Arpita Bhattacharya, Aehong Min, Elissa M. Monteiro, Jesus A. Beltran, Sabrina E. B. Schuck, Kimberley D. Lakes, Gillian R. Hayes, Daniel A. Epstein

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Family informatics often uses shared data dashboards to promote awareness of each other’s health-related behaviors. However, these interfaces often stop short of providing families with needed guidance around how to improve family functioning and health behaviors. We consider the needs of family co-regulation with ADHD children to understand how in-home displays can support family well-being. We conducted three co-design sessions with each of eight families with ADHD children who had used a smartwatch for self-tracking. Results indicate that situated displays could nudge families to jointly use their data for learning and skill-building. Accommodating individual needs and preferences when family members …

The Dry Bloodletting: A History Of The Diagnosis And Treatment Of Posttraumatic Stress Disorders In Military Service Members, Kevin Johnson

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This work is a close look at how veterans of war have been treated medically for ailents of the mind. This work looks closely at the many therapies and pharmaceutical remedies that have been perscribed to veterans with the advent of the field of psycology at the trun of the century. Sources included the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), multiple clinical trials and white papers, records from the VA, etc. The reader should walk away with a better understanding of how the path towards healing invisble wounds has been mired with revictimization and controversy.

Boundaries Of Autonomy: Exploring Parallels Between Mental Hospitals And Prisons In The United States, Benjamin J. Boldt

The Agora

Within the United States, a prevailing perception emerges that mental health facilities and prisons are unfavorably similar. This societal sentiment is quite concerning if true, as the prison system is known for its many societal failures within the U.S. Furthermore, mental hospitals aim to help individuals; thus, a comparison to a faulty system highlights a possible issue worthy of exploration. Unfortunately, little analysis exists, within academic research, comparing both institutions. The following comparative analysis looks at available research between mental hospitals and prisons to validate this issue and explore implications. Findings indicate a shared pattern between mental hospitals and prisons …

Expressive Therapies And Resiliency – Resistance In Mental Health: A Literature Review, Gabrielle Lopez

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This review evaluates the current literature on psychological resistance amongst human service professionals experiencing burnout and the effect of Expressive Arts interventions on resiliency. Concepts include identifying the main symptoms, risk factors, causes, and treatments for burnout in education faculty, medical staff, and clinicians. Qualitative, quantitative, and meta-analysis studies are included to identify the most prevalent intervention frameworks for reducing stress including Arts-Based and Mindfulness-compassion based techniques. The effectiveness of Arts-based tools on strengthening identity, self-esteem, emotional regulation, and meaning-making in combating burnout is presented. Based on analysis of the literature, the author proposes a three-step intervention framework for utilizing …

Method Acting As A Therapeutic Intervention For Trauma Recovery, Remi Moses

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

While considered controversial by some, Method acting as popularized by Lee Strasberg is a technique that elicits powerful and authentic results on stage and screen. The foundational Method acting techniques, the Relaxation Exercise (RE) and the Sense Memory Exercise (SME), share similarities to bottom-up therapeutic processes like Somatic Experiencing and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. By implementing a trauma-informed drama therapy framework with these two exercises, the RE and SME were restructured as a therapeutic intervention for people in trauma recovery. The author implemented a study of three consecutive group therapy sessions for people healing from trauma where clients participated …

Mortality In Medicine, Maren Dougherty

Honors Projects

Practitioners in the medical field attend to health issues across one’s lifespan from birth to death and everything in between. A common conflict in today’s practice of medicine is establishing the true function of medicine. The complete reliance on medicine to ward off death proliferates the biomedicalization of natural life processes, like death. Biomedicalization is the process in which medical authority and its accompanying technology begin to control other aspects of daily life. With medicine’s ultimate goal being to cure disease and fight death, it interferes with the inevitability of human mortality. End-of-life treatment can be taken too far without …

Cognitive Control In Health And Disease: A Dynamic Approach To Mapping Oscillatory Activity Across The Lifespan, Mikki Schantell

Theses & Dissertations

Cognitive control is critical for flexibly adapting goal-directed behaviors to meet the demands of dynamically changing environments. The neural oscillatory dynamics serving cognitive control undergo changes across the lifespan, both in health and disease, with impairments in cognitive control functions being broadly implicated across a multitude of psychiatric disorders. Despite this, the trajectory of the population-level neural oscillatory dynamics supporting cognitive control across the lifespan remain poorly characterized, presenting challenges in fully understanding perturbations to these systems relative to one’s stage in neuronal maturation. Herein, we used the Eriksen flanker task during magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recording to map the neural oscillatory …

Viral Hepatitis And Hiv Screening Amongst Inpatients With Substance Use Disorder, Christine Papastamelos, Md, Elizabeth Novick, Md, Carolyn Kramer, Md, John Zurlo,Md, Nikhil Seval, Md, Daniel Taupin, Md

Health Equity and Quality Improvement (HEQI) Summit

Background

• ~67,000 individuals in Philadelphia county are estimated to be living with opioid use disorder (OUD).¹
• Persons who inject drugs (PWID) are at disproportionately greater risk of acquiring HIV and viral hepatitis compared to the general public.²
• PWID are less likely to receive timely HIV and viral hepatitis screening in the outpatient setting given complex biopsychosocial barriers, including homelessness, mental illness, lack of insurance, incarceration, and stigma.^3,4

Implementation Of A Validated Suicide Screening Tool In A University Student Health Center, Tessa Welniak, Bailey Coslor, Cathrin Carithers

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects: College of Nursing

Purpose. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among adults in the United States and Nebraska. Death by suicide impacts millions of adults every year in the United States but warning signs are often missed during visits with primary care providers. The University of Nebraska at Kearney (UNK) Student Health Center (SHC), like many other primary care clinics, did not routinely screen patients for suicide risk. According to the Joint Commission, all patients over 12 years of age should be screened for suicide using a validated screening tool if the visit is for any behavioral health concern. The project’s …

Chronic Schizophrenia Presenting With Psychogenic Polydipsia Masking Stage Iv Uterine Adenocarcinoma, Dakota B. Pastore, Kamayel Jaludi, Angelo Sica

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Background: Psychogenic polydipsia (PPD) is a condition of excessive water intake and seeking behavior with a 6-20% prevalence among patients with psychiatric illnesses, commonly Schizophrenia. It remains unknown how often concomitant disease can mask other, more serious conditions in psychiatric patients.

Case Description: The patient is a 58-year-old Hispanic, white female with chronic schizophrenia complicated by multiple hospitalizations for hyponatremia secondary to PPD. The patient initially presented to the emergency department (ED) in 2016 with abdominal pain, was treated symptomatically and discharged. From 2020 to 2023, the patient was readmitted seven more times, with two suspected aspirin overdoses, an Ambien …

The Correlation Of Consistent Exercise With Depressive Symptoms, John Gericke, Tara Pellegrino, Robert Steer

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Background: Depression is a major health issue that affects an estimated 350 million people worldwide. Typically, depression is associated with individuals who follow a poor diet and are physically inactive. Exercise is one form of treatment for depression and has been shown to reduce the risk of depression and protect against the onset of depression. The PHQ-9 Depression Score is a tool used to screen individuals for depression on a scale from 0-27. The goal of this study is to identify a relationship between consistent exercise and depression symptoms.

Methods: An original Qualtrics survey was created to be distributed with …

The Effect Of Guided Meditation On Student Doctor-Patient Interactions, Aneela Rampersad, Samantha Plasner

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Healthcare students are under stress and can use different methods to cope with it. Mindfulness techniques such as guided meditation has been used as a way of helping these students reduce their stress levels. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether guided meditation has an effect on student doctors that translates into more positive interactions with patients. This study found that the student doctors who completed guided meditation felt less frustrated and less impatient while interacting with patients than student doctors who did not perform the guided meditation. Future studies on this topic should recruit more participants so …

Maternal Health Outcomes Of The Least And Most Vulnerable Counties In Nj, Nayarith Lopez

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

- Maternal health continues to be of great concern in the United States.

-The maternal mortality rate for 2021 was 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, an increase from both 2020 and 2021.1

-The leading causes of pregnancy-related death are mental health, hemorrhage, and cardiovascular conditions. Most are preventable.2

-New Jersey ranks 27th, with 24.1 deaths occurring within 42 days of the end of a pregnancy per 100,000 live births.3

-While rates for the entire state show a need for improvement, in comparison to northern and central regions, rates in the southern region of NJ are approximately twice the state …

The Effects Of Psychedelic Microdosing On Mental Health: A Systematic Review, David F. Lo, Hasan Zia, Adarsh Thakur, Praneetha Rajkumar, Don D. Shamilov

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

This poster explores the effects of psychedelic microdosing on mental health conditions. Roughly 5.5 million individuals in the U.S. utilize psychedelics to treat their mental health issues. The primary substances used for microdosing currently include LSD and psilocybin, but mescaline, DMT, and amphetamines are used less commonly. This systematic review included 16 unique articles. The types of articles included: observational, placebo, self-reported, motivational, literature review, and comparative studies. The studies indicated lower levels of anxiety, depression, and stress among those that microdose. However, drawbacks such as difficulty sleeping and headaches were reported. Various studies have been published on the effects …

Investigation Of The Utility Of A Ptsd Coaching Mobile App To Address Mental Health Services Demand In A Primary Care Clinic: Analysis Of Caps-5 Measures, Sindhura Nemani, Danielle Rae Schweitzer, Anne C. Jones

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

The COVID-19 pandemic affected countless people globally, resulting in a greater need for mental health professionals and resources¹. The demand for mental health care is soaring yet the limitation of resources has strained the healthcare system, making it challenging to help patients in a timely manner². This poster represents a snapshot of a larger project that is striving to investigate an intervention to help bridge the gap between patient need and prompt referral through a warm handoff approach and use of the PTSD Coach mobile application as well as exploring patients’ satisfaction^3,4,5,6,8,9. In this …

Using Fmri To Assess Effectiveness Of Olanzapine Treatment For Schizophrenia, William Kyle Copenhaver, David F. Lo, Hanna Rothenberg, Eeshan Khurana, Valerie Rome, Uzayr Wasif, Don D. Shamilov

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Schizophrenia is a complex mental illness with neurobiological underpinnings and misconceptions about violence. Schizophrenia is associated with high levels of creativity and structural traits like fewer D2 receptors. Patients face reduced life expectancy due to cardiovascular diseases and cope through smoking and sedentariness. Treatment involves pharmacological antipsychotics like olanzapine and nonpharmacological approaches. Olanzapine works by antagonizing D2 receptors but has side effects like weight gain and diabetes risk. fMRI is used to study treatment mechanisms and predict response, but research on olanzapine's brain network effects is limited.

The Efficacy Of Baricitinib As A Treatment Option For Alopecia, In Terms Of Promoting Hair Regrowth And Improving Patient Reported Outcomes, Bhaumik Patel, Abhiram Gollapudi, Samrat Gollapudi, Srinidhi Banala, Brian Joseph Mathew, Prince Patel

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Background: Alopecia, an autoimmune condition characterized by hair loss, significantly impacts millions globally, often leading to psychological distress such as anxiety and depression. Current treatments are variably effective and frequently associated with adverse effects that restrict long-term use. This study evaluates the efficacy of Baricitinib, a Janus Kinase inhibitor, in treating severe alopecia, focusing on hair regrowth and patient-reported outcomes.

Methods: This research synthesized data from recent publications (2018-2023) including clinical trials, reviews, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews, sourced from databases such as PubMed, Springer, and Elsevier. The inclusion criteria focused on recent studies in English evaluating Baricitinib's effectiveness in severe …

Interprofessional Team Collaboration To Study Integrated Behavioral Health Services In Primary Care, Priya Srivastava, Sindhura Nemani, Danielle Schweitzer, Anne C. Jones

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

• In Rowan Family Medicine (Sewell, NJ), an interprofessional team of medical and clinical psychology professionals and trainees collaborate to investigate the integration of behavioral health in patients’ primary care visits.

• We screen patients for PTSD symptoms using the DSM CAPS-5 during their primary care visits

• The PTSD Coach app is then encouraged to use 3x a day

• By making mental health care more accessible to patients, we strive to help meet the increased demand and alleviate the strain our healthcare system is currently experiencing.

• The team composed of Medicine and Clinical Psychology allows students to gain invaluable experience in interdisciplinary …

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Fregoli Case Report, Don D. Shamilov, David F. Lo, Gaurav Kumar

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Fregoli Syndrome is a rare delusional disorder in the psychotic spectrum named after Italian actor Leopoldo Fregoli. Existing reports focus on clinical aspects and standard treatments, leaving gaps in understanding complexity and tailored interventions. This case report contributes comprehensive analysis of a young adult male with Fregoli syndrome and emphasizes interplay of psychopathology, neurocognition, and psychosocial factors. This report highlights a holistic approach, including differential diagnosis and psychosocial dynamics and aims to improve diagnostic considerations and personalized treatment strategies for better patient outcomes.

How Does Schizophrenia Affect The Expression Of Alpha 7 Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors In The Brain?, Shruti Varshney, Nimish Acharya

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Schizophrenia (SZ) is a psychiatric disorder with a pathophysiology that has not yet been fully understood. This mental illness is characterized by disruptions in cognition, social activity, affect, and perception, and affects approximately 0.085% of individuals worldwide. The Alpha 7 Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor (α7nAChR) has been connected to auditory function gating deficits. The purpose of this review is to understand the current literature in how the levels of α7nAChR expression and function are affected by SZ, information that could be used to develop therapies to modulate auditory hallucinations in patients with SZ. A literature search was conducted for peer-reviewed journal …