scholarly journals In their own words: Understanding Australians’ priority concerns regarding mental health in the context of COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlee Bower ◽  
Amarina Donohoe-Bales ◽  
Scarlett Smout ◽  
Andre Quan Ho Nguyen ◽  
Julia Boyle ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Community Sample ◽  
Poor Mental Health ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Good Mental Health ◽  
Australian Community ◽  
Seeking Help ◽  
The Impact

The COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the recent bushfires and flash floods, have resulted in significant and unprecedented mental health impacts in Australia. Despite the known impacts, there is a paucity of research directly asking Australian community members about their mental health experiences and what they perceive to be the most important mental health issues in the context of the pandemic. This study utilises qualitative data from Alone Together, a longitudinal mixed-methods study investigating the effects of COVID-19 on mental health in an Australian community sample (N = 2,056). Of the 1,350 participants who completed the first follow-up survey, a total of 1,037 participants, who ranged in sex (69.9% female), age (M = 40-49 years), state/territory of residence, and socioeconomic status, shared responses to two open-ended questions regarding the most important issues for mental health in Australia and the impact of COVID-19 on their individual mental health. Responses were analysed using thematic analysis. Participants described COVID-19 as primarily impacting their mental health through the disruption it posed to their social world and financial stability. A key concern for participants who reported having poor mental health was the existence of multiple competing barriers to accessing good mental health care. According to participant responses, the pandemic had pressurized an already over-burdened mental health service system, leaving many without timely, appropriate support. Further absent or stigmatising rhetoric around mental health, at both a political and community level, also prevented participants from seeking help. Insights gained from the present research provide opportunities for policymakers and health practitioners to draw on the expertise of Australians’ lived experience and address priority issues through targeted policy planning. This could ultimately support a more responsive, integrated and effective mental health system, during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stigma about Depression and its Impact on Help-Seeking Intentions

2006 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa J. Barney ◽  
Kathleen M. Griffiths ◽  
Anthony F. Jorm ◽  
Helen Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Help Seeking ◽  
Perceived Stigma ◽  
Professional Help ◽  
Australian Community ◽  
Seeking Help ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Objective Research

Objective: Research has shown that people are reluctant to seek professional help for depression, especially from mental health professionals. This may be because of the impact of stigma which can involve people's own responses to depression and help-seeking (self stigma) as well as their perceptions of others' negative responses (perceived stigma). The aim of this article was to examine community help-seeking intentions and stigmatizing beliefs associated with depression. Method: A total of 1312 adults randomly sampled from the Australian community completed a questionnaire providing a depression vignette and measures of selfand perceived-stigmatizing responses, source-specific help-seeking intentions, current depressive symptoms and depression experience, and demographics. Results: Many people reported they would feel embarrassed about seeking help from professionals, and believed that other people would have a negative reaction to them if they sought such help. Some expected professionals to respond negatively to them. Responses varied according to the sources of professional help. Self-embarrassment and expectations that others would respond negatively predicted the likelihood of help-seeking from professional sources. Conclusion: Self- and perceived-stigmatizing responses to help-seeking for depression are prevalent in the community and are associated with reluctance to seek professional help. Interventions should focus on minimizing expectations of negative responses from others and negative self-responses to help-seeking, and should target younger people.

scholarly journals Queensland Family Cohort: a study protocol

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. e044463
Author(s):  
Danielle Borg ◽  
Kym Rae ◽  
Corrine Fiveash ◽  
Johanna Schagen ◽  
Janelle James-McAlpine ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Family Environment ◽  
Biological Samples ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
Future Health ◽  
The Impact

IntroductionThe perinatal–postnatal family environment is associated with childhood outcomes including impacts on physical and mental health and educational attainment. Family longitudinal cohort studies collect in-depth data that can capture the influence of an era on family lifestyle, mental health, chronic disease, education and financial stability to enable identification of gaps in society and provide the evidence for changes in government in policy and practice.Methods and analysisThe Queensland Family Cohort (QFC) is a prospective, observational, longitudinal study that will recruit 12 500 pregnant families across the state of Queensland (QLD), Australia and intends to follow-up families and children for three decades. To identify the immediate and future health requirements of the QLD population; pregnant participants and their partners will be enrolled by 24 weeks of gestation and followed up at 24, 28 and 36 weeks of gestation, during delivery, on-ward, 6 weeks postpartum and then every 12 months where questionnaires, biological samples and physical measures will be collected from parents and children. To examine the impact of environmental exposures on families, data related to environmental pollution, household pollution and employment exposures will be linked to pregnancy and health outcomes. Where feasible, data linkage of state and federal government databases will be used to follow the participants long term. Biological samples will be stored long term for future discoveries of biomarkers of health and disease.Ethics and disseminationEthical approval has been obtained from the Mater Research Ethics (HREC/16/MHS/113). Findings will be reported to (1) QFC participating families; (2) funding bodies, institutes and hospitals supporting the QFC; (3) federal, state and local governments to inform policy; (4) presented at local, national and international conferences and (5) disseminated by peer-review publications.

scholarly journals Individual- and Relationship-Level Factors Related to Better Mental Health Outcomes following Child Abuse: Results from a Nationally Representative Canadian Sample

2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (12) ◽  
pp. 776-788 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracie O. Afifi ◽  
Harriet L. MacMillan ◽  
Tamara Taillieu ◽  
Sarah Turner ◽  
Kristene Cheung ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Child Abuse ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Canadian Community Health Survey ◽  
Poor Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Outcomes ◽  
Abuse History ◽  
Good Mental Health ◽  
Nationally Representative

Objective: Child abuse can have devastating mental health consequences. Fortunately, not all individuals exposed to child abuse will suffer from poor mental health. Understanding what factors are related to good mental health following child abuse can provide evidence to inform prevention of impairment. Our objectives were to 1) describe the prevalence of good, moderate, and poor mental health among respondents with and without a child abuse history; 2) examine the relationships between child abuse and good, moderate, and poor mental health outcomes; 3) examine the relationships between individual- and relationship-level factors and better mental health outcomes; and 4) determine if individual- and relationship-level factors moderate the relationship between child abuse and mental health. Method: Data were from the nationally representative 2012 Canadian Community Health Survey: Mental Health ( n = 23,395; household response rate = 79.8%; 18 years and older). Good, moderate, and poor mental health was assessed using current functioning and well-being, past-year mental disorders, and past-year suicidal ideation. Results: Only 56.3% of respondents with a child abuse history report good mental health compared to 72.4% of those without a child abuse history. Individual- and relationship-level factors associated with better mental health included higher education and income, physical activity, good coping skills to handle problems and daily demands, and supportive relationships that foster attachment, guidance, reliable alliance, social integration, and reassurance of worth. Conclusions: This study identifies several individual- and relationship-level factors that could be targeted for intervention strategies aimed at improving mental health outcomes following child abuse.

Is co-production working well in recovery colleges? Emergent themes from a systematic narrative review

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Louise Bester ◽  
Anne McGlade ◽  
Eithne Darragh
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Social Care ◽  
The Body ◽  
Bibliographic Databases ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Practitioner Attitudes ◽  
Health And Social Care ◽  
The Impact

Purpose “Co-production” is a process in health and social care wherein service users and practitioners work in partnership. Recovery colleges (RCs) are educational establishments offering mental health education; a cornerstone feature is that courses are designed and delivered in parity by both mental health practitioners and “peers” – people with lived experience of mental illness. This paper aims to consider, through the identification of key themes, whether co-production within RCs is operating successfully. Design/methodology/approach The paper is a systematic review of qualitative literature. Relevant concept groups were systematically searched using three bibliographic databases: Medline, Social Care Online and Scopus. Articles were quality appraised and then synthesised through inductive thematic analysis and emergent trends identified. Findings Synthesis identified three key themes relating to the impact of co-production in RCs: practitioner attitudes, power dynamics between practitioners and service users, and RCs’ relationships with their host organisations. As a result of RC engagement, traditional practitioner/patient hierarchies were found to be eroding. Practitioners felt they were more person-centred. RCs can model good co-productive practices to their host organisations. The review concluded, with some caveats, that RC co-production was of high fidelity. Originality/value RC research is growing, but the body of evidence remains relatively small. Most of what exists examine the impact of RCs on individuals’ overall recovery and mental health; there is a limited empirical investigation into whether their flagship feature of parity between peers and practitioners is genuine.

Recounting coup as the recirculation of Indigenous vitality: A narrative alternative to historical trauma

2021 ◽  
pp. 136346152110549
Author(s):  
Joseph P. Gone
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
American Indian ◽  
American Indians ◽  
Historical Trauma ◽  
Psychological Trauma ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Trauma Narrative ◽  
War Narratives ◽  
Tribal Communities ◽  
The Impact

Contemporary American Indians suffer from disproportionately high degrees of psychiatric distress. Mental health researchers and professionals, as well as American Indian community members, have consistently associated these disproportionate rates of distress with Indigenous historical experiences of European and Euro-American colonization. This emphasis on the impact of colonization and associated historical consciousness within tribal communities has occasioned increasingly widespread professional consideration of historical trauma among Indigenous peoples. In contrast to personal experiences of a traumatic nature, the discourse of Indigenous historical trauma (IHT) weds the concepts of “historical oppression” and “psychological trauma” to explain community-wide risk for adverse mental health outcomes originating from the depredations of past colonial subjugation through intergenerational transmission of vulnerability and risk. Long before the emergence of accounts of IHT, however, many American Indian communities prized a markedly different form of narrative: the coup tale. By way of illustration, I explore various historical functions of this speech genre by focusing on Aaniiih-Gros Ventre war narratives, including their role in conveying vitality or life. By virtue of their recognition and celebration of agency, mastery, and vitality, Aaniiih war stories functioned as the discursive antithesis of IHT. Through comparative consideration of the coup tale and the trauma narrative, I propose an alternative framework for cultivating Indigenous community “survivance” rather than vulnerability based on these divergent discursive practices.

Functional Mobility, Aging, and People With Mental Illness: Issues and Challenges

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 411-411
Author(s):  
Michelle Zechner ◽  
Ellen Anderson ◽  
Kenneth Gill
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Physical Functioning ◽  
Independent Living ◽  
Community Sample ◽  
Functional Decline ◽  
Premature Death ◽  
Functional Mobility ◽  
Health Conditions ◽  
The Impact

Abstract People with serious mental illness (SMI) are more likely to experience chronic health conditions at younger ages, which increases the risk of premature death. Co-morbid health conditions and risk for premature death are well-studied in the population, however less is understood about the impact of aging and SMI on functional ability. Research suggests that the population walk less and may have lower fitness levels than other populations (Gill et al., 2016). Specific data exploring functional age of people with SMI is sparse. The authors compared published standardized geriatric functional fitness values for people over 65 to baseline values of a community sample of people living with SMI who participated in a community health promotion intervention. The average age of the sample was 50 (SD=11). Three physical functioning measures were used in the comparison to measure physical functioning; the Sit to Stand Test, 6 Minute Walk, and Single Legged Stance. Results indicated significant differences in mean physical functioning values between the sample and standardized geriatric values. The sample performed at levels 20-30 years older than their chronological age. This finding suggests that mental health and aging services may need to adjust interventions, services and methods to improve physical functioning in middle-aged and older adults living with SMI. Premature functional decline impacts community living skills, independent living, housing choice, vocational options, and may impede personal goal attainment. Recommendations for interventions will be offered, as will suggestions for policies targeting services that cross aging and mental health silos.

scholarly journals Consumer-run services research and implications for mental health care

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 410-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. P. Segal ◽  
S. L. Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Functional Improvement ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Services Research ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Mental Health Consumers ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Impact

Mental health consumers/survivors developed consumer-run services (CRSs) as alternatives to disempowering professionally run services that limited participant self-determination. The objective of the CRS is to promote recovery outcomes, not to cure or prevent mental illness. Recovery outcomes pave the way to a satisfying life as defined by the individual consumer despite repetitive episodes of disorder. Recovery is a way of life, which through empowerment, hope, self-efficacy, minimisation of self-stigma, and improved social integration, may offer a path to functional improvement that may lead to a better way to manage distress and minimise the impact of illness episodes. ‘Nothing about us without us’ is the defining objective of the process activity that defines self-help. It is the giving of agency to participants. Without such process there is a real question as to whether an organisation is a legitimate CRS or simply a non-governmental organisation run by a person who claims lived experience. In considering the effectiveness of CRSs, fidelity should be defined by the extent to which the organisation's process conveys agency. Unidirectional helping often does for people what they can do for themselves, stealing agency. The consequence of the lack of fidelity in CRSs to the origins of the self-help movement has been a general finding in multisite studies of no or little difference in outcomes attributable to the consumer service. This, from the perspective of the research summarised herein, results in the mixing of programmatic efforts, some of which enhance outcomes as they are true mutual assistance programmes and some of which degrade outcomes as they are unidirectional, hierarchical, staff-directed helping efforts making false claims to providing agency. The later CRS interventions may provoke disappointment and additional failure. The indiscriminate combining of studies produces the average: no effect.

scholarly journals Using Record Linkage to Examine the Impact of Poor Mental Health on Breast Screening Uptake

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Ross ◽  
Dermot O'Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Breast Screening ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Breast Cancer Mortality ◽  
Poor Mental Health ◽  
Breast Screening Programme ◽  
Screening Uptake ◽  
National Breast ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Prescribing Information

BackgroundThe UK National Breast Screening Programme is estimated to reduce breast cancer mortality by 20%. To maximise the benefits of the programme, we first need to understand the underlying factors contributing to variations in screening uptake. One potentially significant factor which may contribute to these gradients in screening uptake is poor mental health. ObjectivesThe objectives of this study were to examine the impact of poor mental health on breast screening uptake, and whether this explained any of the previously observed socio-demographic gradients in screening uptake. MethodsBreast screening records were obtained from the National Breast Screening System (NBSS) and were subsequently linked to 2011 Census data within the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (NILS). The NILS encompasses 28\% of Census data. This was then linked to psychotropic prescribing information from the Enhanced Prescribing Database (EPD), to produce a de-identified research dataset containing 57,328 women. FindingsWomen with self-reported poor mental health were over 20% less likely to attend screening compared to their counterparts who didn't have poor mental health. Using psychotropic prescribing information as a proxy for the presence of mental illness yielded similar results, with those taking anxiolytics, antipsychotics or hypnotics in the three months before screening invitation significantly less likely to attend than those who were not. ConclusionWomen with poor mental health were significantly less likely to attend breast screening. However, poor mental health did not explain any of the previously determined socio-demographic gradients in screening uptake.

scholarly journals Developing trauma resilient communities through community capacity-building

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd P. Gilmer ◽  
Kimberly Center ◽  
Danielle Casteel ◽  
Kyle Choi ◽  
Debbie Innes-Gomberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Capacity Building ◽  
Stress Tolerance ◽  
Community Capacity ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Community Capacity Building ◽  
Community Connectedness ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Trauma Informed ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Background Trauma is a significant public health issue, negatively impacting a range of health outcomes. Providers and administrators in public mental health systems recognize the widespread experience of trauma, as well as their limited ability to address trauma within their communities. In response, the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health funded nine regionally based community partnerships to build capacity to address trauma. We describe partnership and community capacity-building efforts and examine community impact, defined as successful linkages to resources and changes in stress tolerance capacities among community members. Methods We conceptualized community capacity-building as dissemination of trauma-informed education and training, community outreach and engagement, and linkage of community members to resources. We measured trauma-informed trainings among partnership members (N = 332) using the Trauma-Informed Organizational Toolkit. Outreach, engagement and linkages were documented using Event and Linkage Trackers. We examined changes in the type of successful linkage after the issuance of statewide mandatory restrictions in response to COVID-19. We examined changes in stress tolerance capacities among community members (N = 699) who were engaged in ongoing partnership activities using the 10-item Conner-Davidson Resilience Scale; the 28-item Coping Orientation to Problems; and the pictorial Inclusion of Community in Self Scale. Results Training and education opportunities were widespread: 66% of members reported opportunities for training in 13 or more trauma-informed practices. Partnerships conducted over 7800 community capacity-building events with over 250,000 attendees. Nearly 14,000 successful linkages were made for a wide range of resources, with consistent linkage success prior to (85%) and during (87%) the pandemic. In response to COVID-19, linkage type significantly shifted from basic services and health care to food distribution (p < .01). Small but significant improvements occurred in coping through emotional and instrumental support; and sense of community connectedness (p < .05 each). Conclusions Community-based partnerships demonstrated effective capacity-building strategies. Despite the pandemic, community members did not report reduced stress tolerance, instead demonstrating gains in external help-seeking (use of emotional and instrumental supports) and perception of community connectedness. Future work will use qualitative methods to examine the impact of community capacity-building and the sustainability of this approach for addressing the impact of trauma within communities.

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