scholarly journals The social support, mental health, psychiatric symptoms, and functioning of persons with schizophrenia participating in peer co-delivered vocational rehabilitation: a pilot study in Taiwan

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kan-Yuan Cheng ◽  
Chia-Feng Yen
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Support ◽  
Vocational Rehabilitation ◽  
Psychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Skills Training ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Pilot Program ◽  
The Social ◽  
Functional Scores ◽  
Persons With Schizophrenia

Abstract Background Vocational peer support (VPS) services are recovery-oriented interventions in modern psychiatric care for persons with schizophrenia. However, few VPS services are found in Taiwan. Hence, a pilot program of peer co-delivered vocational rehabilitation to support persons with schizophrenia in Taiwan was proposed and evaluated. Methods Six peers were trained and were willing to co-lead and assist workplace problem-solving groups and care skills training in an extended vocational rehabilitation program from August 2017 to December 2018. The social support, mental health, psychiatric symptoms, and functioning of service users were assessed before and after peer co-delivered services, and the assessments were based on the following: Social Support Scale (SSS), Chinese Health Questionnaire-12 (CHQ-12), Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Global Assessment of Function (GAF), and the Chinese version of the Social Functioning Scale (C-SFS). Results The recruited 46 service users were mostly middle-aged (49.1 ± 9.8), with 27 being male (58.7%). After interventions, 42 service users who completed the program had a significantly increased SSS score (149.1 ± 31.8 vs. 161.2 ± 35.0, df = 41, t = 2.70, p = 0.01) and subscale of friend-peer dimension (44.4 ± 12.0 vs. 53.2 ± 13.2, df = 41, t = 4.72, p < 0.001). The objective (GAF: 69.8 ± 9.8 vs. 72.6 ± 8.8, df = 41, t = 3.50, p = 0.001) and subjective social functional scores (C-SFS: 75.2 ± 8.8 vs. 78.1 ± 9.5, df = 41, t = 2.59, p = 0.01) both significantly increased. The weekly wage elevated significantly (37.5 ± 35.5 vs. 43.6 ± 38.0, df = 41, t = 2.57, p = 0.01) and the BPRS-18 score decreased significantly, too (31.2 ± 6.7 vs. 29.3 ± 5.0, df = 41, t = − 2.83, p = 0.007). Conclusions Peer co-delivered vocational rehabilitation services may enhance the social support received by persons with schizophrenia and improve their occupational outcomes. The pilot program proposed can thus be a model for non-Western countries with limited resources allocated by governments to support persons with schizophrenia. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials NCT04767204, retrospectively registered on Feb 23, 2021.

scholarly journals The social support, mental health, psychiatric symptoms, and functioning of persons with schizophrenia participating in peer co-delivered vocational rehabilitation: a pilot study in Taiwan

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kan-Yuan Cheng ◽  
Chia-Feng Yen
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Support ◽  
Vocational Rehabilitation ◽  
Psychiatric Care ◽  
Psychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Skills Training ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Pilot Program ◽  
The Social ◽  
Persons With Schizophrenia

Abstract Background: Vocational peer support (VPS) services are recovery-oriented interventions in modern psychiatric care for persons with schizophrenia. However, few VPS services are found in currently psychiatric care in Taiwan. Hence, a pilot program of peer co-delivered vocational rehabilitation to support persons with schizophrenia in Taiwan was proposed and evaluated.Methods: Six peers were trained and were willing to co-lead and assist workplace problem-solving groups and care skills training in an extended vocational rehabilitation program from August 2017 to December 2018. The social support, mental health, psychiatric symptoms, and functioning of service users were assessed before and after peer co-delivered services, and the assessments were based on the following: Social Support Scale (SSS), Chinese Health Questionnaire-12 (CHQ-12), Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Global Assessment of Function (GAF), and the Chinese version of the Social Functioning Scale (C-SFS). Results: The recruited 46 service users were mostly middle-aged (49.1 ± 9.8), with 27 being male (58.7%). After interventions, forty-two service users who completed the program had a significantly increased SSS score (149.1 ± 31.8 vs. 161.2 ± 35.0, df = 41, t = 2.70, p = 0.01) and subscale of friend-peer dimension (44.4 ± 12.0 vs. 53.2 ± 13.2, df= 41, t = 4.72, p < 0.001). The objective (GAF: 69.8 ± 9.8 vs. 72.6 ± 8.8, df = 41, t = 3.50, p = 0.001) and subjective social functional scores (C-SFS: 75.2 ± 8.8 vs. 78.1 ± 9.5, df = 41, t = 2.59, p = 0.01) both significantly increased. The weekly wage elevated significantly (37.5 ± 35.5 vs. 43.6 ± 38.0, df = 41, t = 2.57, p = 0.01) and the BPRS-18 score decreased significantly, too (31.2 ± 6.7 vs. 29.3 ± 5.0, df = 41, t = -2.83, p = 0.007).Conclusions: Peer co-delivered vocational rehabilitation services can enhance the social support received by persons with schizophrenia and improve their occupational function (as evidenced in wage increases). The pilot program proposed can thus be a model for non-Western countries with limited resources allocated from the government to support persons with schizophrenia.

scholarly journals The social support, mental health, psychiatric symptoms, and functioning of persons with schizophrenia participating in peer co-delivered vocational rehabilitation: a pilot study in Taiwan

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kan-Yuan Cheng ◽  
Chia-Feng Yen
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Support ◽  
Vocational Rehabilitation ◽  
Psychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Pilot Program ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
The Social ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Persons With Schizophrenia

Abstract Background A consensual understanding of the effect of vocational peer support (VPS) on the functioning of persons with schizophrenia still eludes researchers. There are also few VPS services found in non-Western countries. Hence, a pilot program of peer co-delivered vocational rehabilitation to support persons with schizophrenia in Taiwan was proposed and evaluated. Methods Six peers were trained and were willing to co-lead and assist workplace problem-solving and care skills training in an extended vocational rehabilitation program. A total of 46 persons with schizophrenia participated in such services from August 2017 to December 2018. The social support, mental health, psychiatric symptoms, and functioning of service users were assessed before and after peer co-delivered services, based on the following: Social Support Scale (SSS), Chinese Health Questionnaire-12 (CHQ-12), Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Global Assessment of Function (GAF), and the Chinese version of the Social Functioning Scale (C-SFS). Results Most service users were middle-aged (49.1 ± 9.8), with 27 being male (58.7%). Forty-two service users who completed the program scored as follows before and after the intervention: 149.1 ± 31.8 vs. 161.2 ± 35.0, df = 41, t = 2.70, p = 0.01 (total SSS), and 44.4 ± 12.0 vs. 53.2 ± 13.2, df = 41, t = 4.72, p < 0.001 (subscale of friend-peer dimension); 69.8 ± 9.8 vs. 72.6 ± 8.8, df = 41, t = 3.50, p = 0.001 (GAF); 75.2 ± 8.8 vs. 78.1 ± 9.5, df = 41, t = 2.59, p = 0.01 (C-SFS); and 37.5 ± 35.5 vs. 43.6 ± 38.0, df = 41, t = 2.57, p = 0.01 (weekly wage). The BPRS-18 score decreased significantly after the intervention (31.2 ± 6.7 vs. 29.3 ± 5.0, df = 41, t = -2.83, p = 0.007). Conclusions Peer co-delivered vocational rehabilitation services can enhance the social support received by persons with schizophrenia and improve their occupational function (as evidenced in the wage increase). The pilot program proposed can thus be a model for non-Western countries with limited resources allocated from the government to support persons with schizophrenia.

How Relationship Satisfaction Influences Post-Pandemic COVID-19 Anxiety: A Four-Wave Study in China

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jingyi Ou ◽  
yunhanqi ◽  
Ke Zhang ◽  
Yuexiao Du ◽  
Yihang He ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Support ◽  
Psychological Distress ◽  
Relationship Satisfaction ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Isolation ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Perceived Social Support ◽  
The Social

The social isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic exerts lasing impacts on people’s mental health. However, whether and how people’s pre-existing positive social relationships can serve as stable reserves to alleviate people psychological distress following the disaster remains unknown. To address the question, the current study examined whether pre-pandemic relationship satisfaction would predict post-pandemic COVID-19 anxiety through middle-pandemic perceived social support and/or gratitude using four-wave data in China (N = 222, 54.50% female, Mage = 31.53, SD = 8.17). Results showed that people’s COVID-19 anxiety decreased from the peak to the trough pandemic stage; perceived social support increased markedly from the pre-pandemic to the peak and remained stable afterwards, while relationship satisfaction remained unchanged throughout. Further, it was middle-pandemic perceived social support, but not gratitude, mediated the association between pre-pandemic relationship satisfaction and post-pandemic COVID-19 anxiety, indicating perceived social support played a more crucial role than gratitude in this process. Last, it is suggested to distinguish perceived social support from gratitude as two different components of social interactions.

scholarly journals What does social support sound like? Challenges and opportunities for using passive episodic audio collection to assess the social environment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anubhuti Poudyal ◽  
Alastair van Heerden ◽  
Ashley Hagaman ◽  
Celia Islam ◽  
Ada Thapa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Support ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Mobile Phones ◽  
Adolescent Mothers ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
The Social ◽  
Audio Data

Abstract Background: The social environment, including social support, social burden, and quality of interactions, influences a range of health outcomes, including mental health. Passive audio data collection on mobile phones (e.g., episodic recording of the auditory environment without requiring any active input from the phone user) enables new opportunities to understand the social environment. We evaluated the use of passive audio collection on mobile phones as a window onto the relationship between the social environment within a study of mental health among adolescent mothers in Nepal.Methods: We enrolled 23 adolescent mothers who first participated in qualitative interviews to describe their social support and identify sounds potentially associated with that support. Then episodic recordings were collected for two weeks from the same women using an app to capture 30 seconds of audio every 15 minutes from 4am to 9pm. Audio data were processed and classified using a pretrained model. Each classification category was accompanied by a predicted accuracy score. Manual validation of the machine-predicted speech and non-speech categories (10%) was done for accuracy.Results: In qualitative interviews, mothers described a range of positive and negative social interactions and the sounds that accompanied these. Potential positive sounds included adult speech and laughter, baby babbling and laughter, and sounds from baby toys. Sounds characterizing negative stimuli included yelling, crying, screaming by adults and crying by babies. Sounds associated with social isolation included silence and TV or radio noises. Speech comprised of 43% of all passively recorded audio clips (n=7725). Manual validation showed a 23% false positive rate and 62% false-negative rate for speech, demonstrating potential underestimation of speech exposure. Other common sounds included music and vehicular noises.Conclusions: Passively capturing audio has the potential to improve understanding of the social environment. However, the limited accuracy of the pre-trained model used in this study did not adequately distinguish between positive and negative social interactions. To improve the contribution of passive audio collection to understanding the social environment, future work should improve the accuracy of audio categorization, code for constellations of sounds, and combine audio with other smartphone data collection such as location and activity.

scholarly journals Does social support moderate the association between hunger and mental health in youth? A gender-specific investigation from the Canadian Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nour Hammami ◽  
Scott T. Leatherdale ◽  
Frank J. Elgar
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Support ◽  
Health Behaviour ◽  
Negative Association ◽  
Mental Health Score ◽  
Health Score ◽  
School Aged Children ◽  
The Social ◽  
Canadian Health ◽  
Gender Specific

Abstract Background Youth who go hungry have poorer mental health than their counterparts – there are gender differences in this relationship. This study investigated the role of social support in the association between hunger and mental health among a nationally representative sample of youth in Canada in gender-specific analyses. Methods We used a probability-based sample of 21,750 youth in grades 6–10 who participated in the 2017–2018 Canadian Health Behaviour in School-aged Children. Self-report data were gathered on hunger, mental health (measured via the World Health Organization-5 well-being index) and five sources of support – peer, family and teacher support as well as the school climate and neighborhood support. We conducted adjusted, gender-specific, multilevel regression analyses assessing the association between mental health, social support and hunger. Results We found that youth who reported lower support were more likely to experience going to bed hungry (relative to never hungry) across all support factors. As for the social support factors, all the social support factors were associated with a higher mental health score, even after controlling for hunger. Despite these results our final set of models showed that our measures of social support did not alleviate the negative association between hunger and mental health. As for gender-specific findings, the negative association between hunger and a mental health was more pronounced among females relative to their male counterparts. We also found that certain social support factors (i.e., family, teacher and neighborhood support) were associated with a higher mental health score among females relative to males while controlling for hunger status. Conclusions We find that five social support factors are associated with a higher mental health score among ever hungry youth; however, social support did not overpower the negative association between hunger and mental health. Food insecurity is a challenge to address holistically; however, hungry youth who have high social support have higher odds of better mental health.

Work and Work Programmes for Clients with Mental Health Problems

1995 ◽  
Vol 58 (11) ◽  
pp. 465-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Celia Oxley
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Supported Employment ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Psychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Skills Training ◽  
Paid Work ◽  
Work Skills ◽  
Voluntary Work ◽  
Do It Yourself

Work may be defined in a number of ways and cover a variety of activities. As well as paid work, it can cover such activities as hobbies, housework, voluntary work and do-it-yourself. It is an important factor in promoting mental health. Meaningful work may actually reduce a client's psychiatric symptoms. A work rehabilitation programme needs to cater not only for those able to progress to open employment but also for those needing supported or sheltered employment. Consequently, the programme should Include a thorough work skills assessment, work adjustment and work skills training, sheltered employment and transitional/supported employment leading, finally, for those who are able, to open employment.

scholarly journals Masculinity, Social Connectedness, and Mental Health: Men’s Diverse Patterns of Practice

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1247-1261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah K. McKenzie ◽  
Sunny Collings ◽  
Gabrielle Jenkin ◽  
Jo River
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Support ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Connectedness ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Support Networks ◽  
Social Connections ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
Patterns Of Practice

Men’s mental health has remained undertheorized, particularly in terms of the gendered nature of men’s social relations. While the importance of social connections and strong supportive networks for improving mental health and well-being is well documented, we know little about men’s social support networks or how men go about seeking or mobilizing social support. An in-depth understanding of the gendered nature of men’s social connections and the ways in which the interplay between masculinity and men’s social connections can impact men’s mental health is needed. Fifteen life history interviews were undertaken with men in the community. A theoretical framework of gender relations was used to analyze the men’s interviews. The findings provide rich insights into men’s diverse patterns of practice in regards to seeking or mobilizing social support. While some men differentiated between their social connections with men and women, others experienced difficulties in mobilizing support from existing connections. Some men maintained a desire to be independent, rejecting the need for social support, whereas others established support networks from which they could actively seek support. Overall, the findings suggest that patterns of social connectedness among men are diverse, challenging the social science literature that frames all men’s social relationships as being largely instrumental, and men as less able and less interested than women in building emotional and supportive relationships with others. The implications of these findings for promoting men’s social connectedness and mental health are discussed.

Perceived social support and life-satisfaction

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 144-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Kasprzak
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Life Satisfaction ◽  
Social Skills ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Social Skills Training ◽  
Perceived Social Support ◽  
Skills Training ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

Perceived social support and life-satisfaction The article concerns the relationship between life-satisfaction and the features of interpersonal relationships and social support. The research presented in this paper concerned the satisfaction with the relationships with family members, friends, colleagues and acquaintances, the extent of the relationships among these groups, and the perceived social support. The aim of the presented research is to assess the impact of these characteristics on life-satisfaction. In addition, the changes that occurred after the social skills training in the level of life-satisfaction and its determinants were examined. The study group consisted of 60 participants. The results show that the strongest determinants of life-satisfaction are practical support and the satisfaction with the relationships with friends. After the social training the structure of the determinants changed. The factors which were relevant before the training appear to be insignificant now; however, the emotional support, satisfaction with family relationships and the number of friends gain in importance. The social skills training was also effective and increased the level of life-satisfaction.

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