scholarly journals Military museum collections and art therapy as mental health resources for veterans with PTSD

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 172-182
Author(s):  
Janice Lobban ◽  
Dominic Murphy
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peng-Wei Wang ◽  
Wei-Hsin Lu ◽  
Yi-Lung Chen ◽  
Dian-Jeng Li ◽  
Yu-Ping Chang ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a ‘public health emergency of international concern. Both worry and anxiety are the common psychological impact during the pandemic. The level of and determinants for worry and anxiety during COVID-19 are not well explored. OBJECTIVE The present study aimed to explore the associations of demographic and environmental factors with worry toward COVID-19 and general anxiety among people in Taiwan. METHODS In total, 1970 respondents were recruited through a Facebook advertisement and completed an online survey on worry toward COVID-19, general anxiety during the pandemic, and individual and environmental factors. RESULTS In total, 51.7% and 43.4% of respondents reported high levels of worry toward COVID-19 and general anxiety, respectively. Worse self-rated mental health, lower self-confidence in COVID-19 management, and insufficient mental health resources were significantly associated with high levels of both worry toward COVID-19 and general anxiety. Lower perceived confidence in COVID-19 management by the regional government was significantly associated with a higher level of worry toward COVID-19. Lower perceived social support was significantly associated with a higher level of general anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. CONCLUSIONS The results showed that high levels of worry toward COVID-19 and general anxiety were prevalent during the disease outbreak. Multiple individual and environmental factors related to worry toward COVID-19 and general anxiety were identified. CLINICALTRIAL


Author(s):  
Catherine Malboeuf-Hurtubise ◽  
Terra Léger-Goodes ◽  
Geneviève A. Mageau ◽  
Geneviève Taylor ◽  
Catherine M. Herba ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Emerging literature on the current COVID-19 crisis suggests that children may experience increased anxiety and depression as a result of the pandemic. To prevent such school and mental health-related problems, there is a timely need to develop preventive strategies and interventions to address potential negative impacts of COVID-19 on children’s mental health, especially in school settings. Results from previous child clinical research indicate that art-based therapies, including mindfulness-based art therapy, have shown promise to increase children’s well-being and reduce psychological distress. Objective The goal of the present pilot and feasibility study was to compare the impact of an emotion-based directed drawing intervention and a mandala drawing intervention, on mental health in elementary school children (N = 22), in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both interventions were group-based and delivered online and remotely. A pilot study using a randomized cluster design was implemented to evaluate and compare both interventions in relation to child anxiety, depression, inattention and hyperactivity symptoms. Results Analyses of covariance revealed a significant effect of the type of drawing intervention on levels of inattention, after controlling for baseline levels. Participants in the emotion-based directed drawing group showed lower inattention scores at post-test, when compared to participants in the mandala group. Post-hoc sensitivity analyses showed significant decreases in pre-to-post scores for levels of hyperactivity for the complete sample. Conclusion Overall, results from this pilot and feasibility study showed that both an emotion-based directed drawing intervention and a mandala drawing intervention may be beneficial to improve mental health in elementary school children, in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic. From a feasibility standpoint, results indicate that the implementation of both interventions online and remotely, through a videoconference platform, is feasible and adequate in school-based settings. Further work incorporating larger sample sizes, longitudinal data and ensuring sufficient statistical power is warranted to evaluate the long-term impact of both interventions on children’s mental health.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 345-357
Author(s):  
Brittany L. Mitchell ◽  
Katherine M. Kirk ◽  
Kerrie McAloney ◽  
Margaret J. Wright ◽  
Tracey A. Davenport ◽  
...  

AbstractThe ‘16Up’ study conducted at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute from January 2014 to December 2018 aimed to examine the physical and mental health of young Australian twins aged 16−18 years (N = 876; 371 twin pairs and 18 triplet sets). Measurements included online questionnaires covering physical and mental health as well as information and communication technology (ICT) use, actigraphy, sleep diaries and hair samples to determine cortisol concentrations. Study participants generally rated themselves as being in good physical (79%) and mental (73%) health and reported lower rates of psychological distress and exposure to alcohol, tobacco products or other substances than previously reported for this age group in the Australian population. Daily or near-daily online activity was almost universal among study participants, with no differences noted between males and females in terms of frequency or duration of internet access. Patterns of ICT use in this sample indicated that the respondents were more likely to use online information sources for researching physical health issues than for mental health or substance use issues, and that they generally reported partial levels of satisfaction with the mental health information they found online. This suggests that internet-based mental health resources can be readily accessed by adolescent Australians, and their computer literacy augurs well for future access to online health resources. In combination with other data collected as part of the ongoing Brisbane Longitudinal Twin Study, the 16Up project provides a valuable resource for the longitudinal investigation of genetic and environmental contributions to phenotypic variation in a variety of human traits.


Author(s):  
Manuel García-Goñi ◽  
Alexandrina P. Stoyanova ◽  
Roberto Nuño-Solinís

Background: Mental illness, multi-morbidity, and socio-economic inequalities are some of the main challenges for the public health system nowadays, and are further aggravated by the process of population aging. Therefore, it is widely accepted that health systems need to focus their strategies for confronting such concerns. With guaranteed access to health care services under universal coverage in many health systems, it is expected that all services be provided equally to patients with the same level of need. Methods: In this paper, we explore the existence of inequalities in the access to services of patients with mental illness taking into account whether they are multimorbid patients, their socioeconomic status, and their age. We take advantage of a one-year (2010–2011) database on individual healthcare utilization and expenditures for the total population (N = 2,262,698) of the Basque Country. Results: More comorbidity leads to greater inequality in prevalence, being the poor sicker, although with age, this inequality decreases. All health services are more oriented towards greater utilization of the poor and sicker, particularly in the case of visits to specialists and emergency care. Conclusions: Mental health inequalities in prevalence have been identified as being disproportionally concentrated in the least affluent areas of the Basque Country. However, inequalities in the utilization of publicly-provided health services present a pro-poor orientation. As this region has adopted a system-wide transformation towards integrated care, its mental health delivery model offers excellent potential for international comparisons and benchlearning.


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