Developing Tailored Messages to Improve Mental Health and Adjustment of Asian International Students

The purpose of the study was to develop tailored messages improving mental health and adjustment of Asian international students (AIS) in the US. The PEN-3 cultural model was used to contextualize the role of culture in mental health needs of AIS. Messages were developed through a multi-step participatory process with consisting of three focus groups (n=15), thirteen individual interviews, one expert consultation, and finally an online survey (n=85). The study led to the development of seven broad themes with seven tailored messages under each theme (total 49). Seven broad themes were: increasing the awareness of mental health and reducing stigma; motivational quotes; available and accessible resources for AIS to improve mental health; seeking help from social network and developing interpersonal skills; adjusting to American culture and college life; coping strategies to reduce stress and improve mental health and adjustment; and safety issues. The implications for culturally responsive programs are discussed.

Psychological and Occupational Pressure Among Female Teachers in Light of the Coronavirus Disease Pandemic and Coping Strategies

<p style="text-align: justify;">This study aims at identifying the level of psychological and professional stress in light of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. It adopted descriptive and analytical methodologies. Two scales were prepared: one scale for psychological and professional stress and the other for coping with psychological and professional pressures. The study sample consisted of 608 female teachers at public schools in Al-Kharj province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The results show a moderate level of psychological and professional stresses. The findings show statistically significant differences in teaching experience variable. The differences were in favour of female teachers with experience of less than 5 years. However, no statistically significant differences were found on the variable of academic qualification. It was found that female teachers had followed strategies to cope with psychological and professional stresses including resorting to faith, connecting with other teachers and students, planning different strategies, seeking help from others and managing time. The study recommends arranging training courses for female teachers to develop remote teaching skills and using various technologies and applications in this field particularly during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.</p>

Profile of Patients Availing Marital and Psychosexual Clinic Services During the Pre-COVID and COVID Era: A Study From a Tertiary Care Center

Aim: To assess the profile of patients availing the marital and psychosexual clinic (MPC) services through the telemode at a tertiary care center after the imposition of lockdown and compare the same with the profile of the patients attending the outpatient services, in-person MPC services during the prelockdown period. Materials and Methods: It was a retrospective study in which comparisons were made between patients availing the MPC services from March 24, 2020 to March 23, 2021 with the profile of patients during the period of March 24, 2019 to March 23, 2020 (ie, COVID period—lockdown). Results: A total of 112 patients availed the MPC services during the COVID study period compared to 307 patients in the pre-COVID period. However, when the proportion of MPC cases among the total walk-ins was compared, during the COVID period the proportion of MPC cases increased by almost 1.75 times. During the COVID time period, there was an increase in the patients who were significantly younger ( P = .002), females ( P = .003), more from urban locality ( P = .035), and being referred by self or caregiver ( P = .001). In terms of specific diagnosis, as compared to the pre-COVID timeframe, significantly higher numbers of patients were diagnosed with premature ejaculation (PME) and PME + erectile dysfunction while the services were being provided through the telemode. Conclusion: The present study suggests an increase in the proportion of patients seeking help for marital and sexual issues while the services are being provided by telemode.

More Than Mental Illness: Experiences of Associating with Stigma of Mental Illness for Chinese College Students

From existing empirical research, we identified that Chinese college students commonly experience stigma surrounding mental illness and found some factors that support them in resisting the stigma and achieving psychological health. However, less research provides qualitative data involving individual experiences and insights on mental illness within this group of college students. This study, based on ACE-LYNX (an internationally cooperative research-sharing project between China and Canada), was conducted in Shandong, Jinan, and aims to promote the mental health of college students by empowering interdisciplinary professionals and students. Through the research project, this study analyzed the materials from 24 focus groups, explored the understanding of mental illness and prevalence of mental illness stigma in Chinese colleges at the present time, administered a background questionnaire, and provided statistical support for some revealed themes. The final themes are as follows: mental illness is stereotyped as “severe, pathetic, and complicated”; the misconception of “visiting a psychological counselor is scary”; from public stigma to self-stigma; barriers deterring students from seeking help or accessing services; two sides of the same coin: peer support versus peer pressure.

How I Deal With Breast Cancer: Iranian Women Survivors Coping Strategies - Content Analysis

Background: Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer in Iran. Understanding the coping strategies employed by cancer survivors can provide valuable information for designing interventions to help them adapt to their problems produced by cancer and its treatment. This study aimed to explore the coping strategies of BC survivors in Iran.Methods: This qualitative study was conducted in Mashhad, Northeast of Iran, between April to December 2021. 14 breast cancer survivors were selected through purposive sampling method. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed using conventional content analysis adopted by Graneheim & Lundman. MAXQDA 12 software, was used for data organization. Components of trustworthiness including credibility, dependability, confirmability and transferability were considered.Results: The main themes which emerged from participants' data analysis were "behavioral coping strategies" and "emotional coping strategies". Behavioral strategies such as change nutritional habits, improving lifestyle, trying to stay active, seeking help for improvement of physical and mental needs and efforts to increase knowledge and literacy about BC. The psychological strategies were denying the breast cancer, psychological empowerment, spirituality and seeking help of family and relatives. Conclusion: Our findings provide in-depth understanding of Iranian women’s strategies for coping with BC. The qualified teams of psychiatrics, oncologists and reproductive health specialists need to contribute significantly to an upgraded coping of patients to cancer that could lead to higher quality of life.

Mobile Mental Health

Several people with mental health problems do not receive suitable treatment and often avoid or delay seeking help due to concerns about being treated differently and other practical barriers (for example, services costs and unavailability). The mobile health concept has gained more enthusiasts worldwide exactly because it helps mitigate some of these issues. However, despite the emerging scientific evidence in the last decade that proves the efficacy and safety of these interventions, professionals have shown some doubts and worries about their implementation, especially in the mental health field. Thereby, this chapter provides a review on the subject, presenting several mobile applications for mental health problems and also the expectations and needs of health professionals and users for development and implementation of a mobile application.

Mental Health Assist and Diagnosis Conversational Interface using Logistic Regression Model for Emotion and Sentiment Analysis

The aim of this work was to create a fully functional AI-ML based conversational agent that behaves like a real time therapist which analyses the user’s emotion at every step and provides appropriate responses and feedback. AI chatbots, although fairly new to the domain of mental health, can help in destigmatizing seeking help, and are more easily accessible to everyone, at any time. Chatbots provide an effective way to communicate with a user and offer helpful emotional support in a more economical way. While making regular psychiatric visits often require a fixed duration/appointment which can be time consuming and is restricted to a fraction of the day, the proposed chatbot can keep track of your health on the go at any time. The application will have a self-healing kit suggesting various exercises, both mental and physical that the user may implement in his day-to-day life. The study below goes into further detail on the major insinuations for future chatbot agent design and assessment

Moral Injury during the COVID-19 pandemic: A delphi model survey of family medicine residents

Objectives The objective is to investigate the primary factors that created experiences leading to moral injury in family medicine residents during the COVID-19 pandemic and also to identify any barriers keeping these residents from seeking or receiving help when they experienced moral injury. Method A DELPHI model study utilizing three rounds of surveys was conducted at four family medicine residency programs in the United States. Resident responses to Survey 1 generated factors perceived to be causing them moral injury or constituting barriers to their seeking help. Thematic analysis identified common themes which were presented to residents in Survey 2 for rating and justification. Results and feedback from Survey 2 were shared with residents in Survey 3, where residents were prompted to reevaluate their ratings for factors and barriers for the purpose of generating consensus among themselves. A ranked list of factors and barriers was thereby created for the participating sites. Results Residents shared several stories about the factors that most pressured them to violate their moral values. The most severe and frequent factors contributing to moral injury involved disruptions to doctor–patient relationships, patient–family relationships, and relationships with other healthcare professionals. Time was the major barrier to residents seeking help. Conclusion During times of crisis, moral injury among residents may be minimized by protecting and promoting important clinical and professional relationships with patients, colleagues, and other medical professionals. While residents report that lack of time was the most significant barrier to seeking help, it is unclear how this complicated and ubiquitous problem would be resolved or mitigated.

Should I Ask Over Zoom, Phone, Email, or In-Person? Communication Channel and Predicted Versus Actual Compliance

Research has found that people are much more likely to agree to help requests made in-person than those made via text-based media, but that help-seekers underestimate the relative advantage of asking for help face-to-face. It remains unknown what help-seekers’ intuitions about the effectiveness of richer media channels incorporating audio and video features might be, or how these intuitions would compare with the actual effectiveness of face-to-face or email versus rich media requests. In two behavioral and two supplemental vignette experiments, participants expected differences in the effectiveness of seeking help through various communication channels to be quite small, or nonexistent. However, when participants actually made requests, the differences were substantial. Ultimately, help-seekers underestimated the relative advantage of asking for help face-to-face compared with asking through any mediated channel. Help-seekers also underestimated the relative advantage of asking through richer media channels compared with email.

An Approach to the Anthropological Theory of the Qur’an and Hadith and Their Roles in Reducing Environmental Degradation

Background: According to the Qur’an, man is the servant and the successor of Allah, the representative of prosperity on earth, and has the responsibility for the universe. This approach will create a constructive human interaction with the environment. Environmental degradation is against the will of Allah. It originates from ignorance, human selfishness, passions, and evil temptations, manifest in greed, arrogance, and extravagance. If humans control these abnormal factors and follow Qur’an teachings, they will enjoy a healthy environment that is a universal right. This paper seeks to study the anthropological theory of the Qur’an and its role in reducing environmental degradation. Methods: Based on the descriptive-analytical design, we explored 70 verses of the Holy Qur’an in which the words samā’, ‘ard, mas’ūl, khalīfah, shaytān, and those are cognate with the Arabic verbs sa-khkha-ra, ha-ra-sa, sa-ra-fa, ki-ba-ra, ha-wā, ‘a-ba-da, and ‘a-ma-ra, as well as the related articles, books, and philological and exegetical sources. We investigated the Qur’an to find the effect of awareness and more attention of human beings to the dimensions of man’s creation to reduce environmental degradation. These issues will be discussed in two parts: 1) the anthropology and the dimensions of human creation in the Qur’an, and 2) the causes of environmental degradation. Results: This study showed that the survival of life and human enjoyment of a healthy environment depends on enough knowledge of oneself, seeking help from Allah, and following the Qur’anic guidelines. These facts effectively control internal and external causes of environmental degradation, including ignorance, egoism, selfishness, and evil temptations. These actions destroy the roots of greed, arrogance, and extravagance in human beings. For this reason, Allah demands humans to develop earth, care for and rescue it from any destruction, avoid extravagance, and observe justice. Conclusion: Meditating in the Qur’an, the man knows his creative dimensions and environmental degradation factors that are incompatible with nature and are rooted in some of the inner and outer dimensions of human personality. Hence, he will consciously enjoy sustainable development and maintaining a healthy environment. This behavior will then reduce anomalies in the environment on his part.