Latina Mothers' Perceptions of Mental Health and Mental Health Promotion

Latina mothers' perceptions of mental health and factors that promote/restore mental health were explored in this qualitative study. Participants discussed the importance of community, safety, and financial stability in addition to conventional factors that are related to mental health. Implications for working with urban Latinas and their families are discussed. En este estudio cualitativo se exploraron las percepciones de las madres Latinas sobre Salud Mental y los factores que la fomentan/restablecen. Las participantes discutieron acerca de la importancia de la comunidad, la seguridad y la estabilidad financiera además de otros factores convencionales relacionados con la salud mental. Se discuten las implicaciones para el trabajo con Latinas residentes en núcleos urbanos y sus familias.     

Counselors', Rehabilitation Providers', and Teachers' Perceptions of Mental and Physical Disabilities

The diversity perceptions of human service professionals may be critical indicators of effective service provision. Specifically, this study explored the disability perceptions of counselors, rehabilitation providers, and teachers (N = 172) enrolled in a large, southeastern university. A 76% response rate was achieved in the study, indicating clear differences by human service providers' preparation area and perceptions of disability type. Implications for preparation and future research are discussed.     

角色压力源对教师生理健康与心理健康的影响

首先,对角色压力源量表在中国文化背景下的适用性进行了检验,6所学校586份调查问卷的探索性因素分析和内部一致性分析表明,角色压力源问卷具有较好的效度和信度;7所学校612份调查问卷的验证性因素分析进一步验证了角色压力源问卷的效度和信度。然后,利用7所学校612份有效数据,采用层次回归分析考察了角色压力源与教师生理健康、心理健康的关系,结果表明:角色压力源对教师的生理健康与心理健康有显著的负向影响。     

Mapping Men's Mental Health

The central theme of this paper is that men are at one and the same time both damaged and damage-doing. The process of being damaged through the agency of masculinity predisposes men to exploit, dominate and abuse—not only as boys, as partners and fathers, but as priests, teachers, therapists, lawyers, nurses, psychologists and psychiatrists. Mental health services need to see both aspects of this male equation: a focus on male abuse alone leads to punishment, containment and, very likely, the continuation of abuse; a focus on male damagedness alone preserves the ideology of male unaccountability. However, evidence reviewed here suggests that most traditional psychiatric services fail to acknowledge the impact of inequalities on men's mental health as comprehensively as they fail to acknowledge the impact of these inequalities on the mental health of women. This is a significant problem, and we suggest ways that a gendered analysis of masculinity can be used to help address this deficit. This analysis is used to develop a map of men's mental health that not only accommodates traditional categories of mental health difficulty, but other important consequences of the close association between masculinity and sexuality inequality, especially the use of violence and the capacity to do harm. This analytical framework also invites consideration of the invisibility of male distress, the disallowing and desensitizing of ‘vulnerability, and their submersion in a kind of psychology of entitlement. Finally, we consider the implications of this mapping exercise for mental health services and for working with men.     

Employers' Perceptions of Occupational Therapy in Community Mental Health

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the nature of occupational therapy practice from the perspective of community mental health agency directors currently employing occupational therapists. Directors were interviewed using a semi-structured format. Retrospective content analysis produced a systematic detailed summary of six major and eight minor themes separating into process themes or how the occupational therapist practised, and content themes, or what the occupational therapist practised. The process themes included a holistic approach, client centredness, and a practical, outcome oriented focus. The content themes included the use of activity, focus on individual functioning, and specific vocational and living skill training. In addition, some directors identified inadequacies including insufficient medical background and the need for education in community practice. Themes were compared against two additional data sources; expert occupational therapists and current literature in occupational therapy in mental health. There was agreement on the major themes. Implications of these results are discussed.     

Working with Mental Health Service Users to Change Mental Health Services

During the last ten years in the UK, service user consultation and collaboration has gradually entered the vocabulary of people providing and purchasing mental health services. However, we are not convinced that much needed change in mental health services will be achieved as a function of increased commitment to market consumerism. We argue here that service user consultation and collaboration should take account of the effects of social inequalities on mental health and on mental health services. This perspective highlights the need for fundamental change in mental health services, and helps us to appreciate the strength of resistance to change, and to understand some of the dynamics involved. We describe here how this perspective has motivated and shaped our own efforts to collaborate responsibly with service users to change mental health services.     

Mental Health and Adverse Childhood Experiences

The theoretical basis of occupational therapy interventions was investigated in two mental health facilities in the Midwestern United States. Using retrospective cohort and grounded theory designs, 121 medical records were reviewed and five occupational therapy practitioners were interviewed. Theoretical reasoning was not explicitly documented, but according to analysis, the behavioral/cognitive-behavioral model, client-centered models, and the model of human occupation were the most frequently used theories to guide interventions. Lack of documentation of theory use has significant implications for the value accorded to occupational therapy skills in health care. A larger study is recommended to increase external generalizability of the findings.     

Mental Health in the Schools

Progress is being made in the area of delivering mental health services in the schools through collaborative programs that involve combinations of schools, communities, and research-based programs. The goal of extending collaborative efforts to initiatives that prevent emotional and behavioral problems from developing or escalating is a cross-cutting theme of the National Agenda for Achieving Better Results for Children and Youth with Serious Emotional Disturbance. I discuss examples of collaborative efforts to prevent emotional behavioral problems in school children and ways by which this effort can be enhanced in schools and communities.     

The Concerned Mental Health Practitioner

Summary

A discussion is provided regarding a fundamental principle of psychology, a concern for other's welfare, as set out in the American Psychological Association's (2002) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Although the principle concern for others' welfare is essentially aspirational in nature, this is an ethical principle that is at the core of the mental health professions' stated values, and that must be positively put into operation in a variety of professional contexts. Unlike so much else in professional ethics codes that involves injunctions of what not to do, or which attempts to limit the self-serving tendencies of professionals, this general principle is essentially positive, pointing to the need to approach others and to consider their welfare first.     

Mental Health Professionals' Perceptions of Women's Experiences of Family Violence

This study explored perceptions of 92 mental health professionals regarding violent families. They were asked to answer the questions on the Family Environment Scale as they thought women who lived in homes where they and their children were physically and/or psychologically abused would respond. Their scores were compared to those of 28 mothers in battered women's shelters. They differed significantly in their perceptions of violent family dynamics with regard to levels of cohesion, expressiveness, independence, intellectual-cultural orientation, active-recreational emphasis, and moral-religious emphasis. They believed the women to have lower levels on these constructs than the women actually reported. Implications suggest that mental health professionals could be more aware of the dynamics of violent families in order to efficiently uncover the violence during therapy sessions and provide appropriate services.     

Community Mental Health Service Providers' Codes of Ethics and the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing

This study compared the codes of ethics of 13 professional organizations for community mental health service providers that have been represented at the meetings of the Fair Access Coalition for Testing with the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (American Educational Research Association [AERA], American Psychological Association [APA], & National Council on Measurement in Education [NCME], 1985) and all those standards cited in the revised Standards (AERA, APA, & NCME, 1999) that the investigators identified as pertaining to clinical assessment, as these standards apply to test users. The results suggest that only 2 of the codes of ethics address many of the Standards. Implications and recommendations for professional organizations are provided.     

Termination of Mental Health Services for Children

In this paper, we examine the termination of children's mental health services. Analyses were based on the 901 families in the Fort Bragg Evaluation Project who participated at Wave 1 and Wave 2 six months later. The project compared a full continuum of care provided at a demonstration site with traditional care at two comparison sites. The results showed that in most cases families and providers were partners in decisions to terminate treatment. About half of the clients self-terminated or were terminated solely at the discretion of the provider. Providers tended to play a more dominant role in terminating restrictive services; families played a more central role in terminating outpatient care. Regardless of initial psychopathology, children in single-headed households, whose parents were dissatisfied with services, did not expect their child to cooperate with treatment and did not expect treatment to help their child, were more likely to terminate care than others. While the Demonstration site had significantly fewer terminations, the sites did not differ with regard to the reasons for termination, who participated in termination decisions, or the factors that affected the likelihood to terminate care. Of most interest, mental health outcomes among children who had terminated all care did not vary by reasons for termination or by who participated in the termination decision.     

国外心理健康服务及其启示

在回顾了美国、瑞典等国家心理健康服务概况的基础上提出了以下启示：1．中国心理健康服务体系应以构建和谐社会理论为基础;2．在心理服务的教育与培训中,应当尽量兼顾普及知识与提高专业化水平两个目标;3．政府应当大力支持社区心理健康服务以及包含各种社区可用资源的综合性社区服务;4．中国心理健康服务必须从本国文化与国情出发,因此还需要更多这方面的文献总结与实际诃查工作;5．心理健康服务应当全面而有区别地实施予心理健康水平不同的人群。     

Memphis City Schools Mental Health Center

Summary

This article describes a nationally recognized integrated service program in operation since 1969 within the Memphis (TN) City Schools. Memphis City Schools Mental Health Center represents a comprehensive model for the delivery of integrated mental health and substance abuse services to children and youth with a wide range of problems. Notably, the model incorporates elements of primary and secondary prevention and community outreach into service delivery, components that may be under-emphasized in programs that are oriented toward specific clinical populations (e.g., SED). Program components are discussed in detail to demonstrate both unique and inter-related program features, reflecting the complex needs of the children and families being served. Future directions and challenges are also considered.     

Occupational Therapy Shared Decision Making in Adolescent Mental Health

Shared decision making (SDM) shares values of client-centered practice; however, a few studies exist that explore experiences of occupational therapists (OTs) working in adolescent mental health. This study aims to better understand SDM in adolescent mental health using the Canadian Model of Client-Centered Enablement. A qualitative study included interviews (n = 6) and analysis using an inductive approach. The role of the OT, client factors, therapeutic relationship, and nature of the decision were identified as influencing the process and outcome of SDM. The study helps better understand SDM in practice, the need for specialized education for OTs and has identified future research areas.     

A Bibliometric Analysis of the Quantitative Mental Health Literature in Occupational Therapy

ABSTRACT

A bibliometric analysis was performed to examine the impact and use of the peer-reviewed occupational therapy intervention effectiveness literature addressing adults with mental illness, 2000–2016. Of 2,597 articles, 68 were quantitative studies assessing an intervention for adults with mental illness. These studies had a collective citation count of 1,455 and were published in 29 journals in 14 countries. The majority (n?=?36; 52.94%) were randomized controlled and two-group controlled studies. The most commonly assessed interventions were life skills and community reintegration (n?=?20, 29.41%) and supported employment (n?=?16, 23.52%). Sixty-five (95.58%) studies found statistically significant results on the primary or secondary outcomes.     

Principles of Occupational Therapy Group Outcome Assessment in Mental Health

In today's penurious health care climate, occupational therapists must scrutinize their practice and substantiate their interventions in order to remain viable service providers. This article proposes a method of occupational therapy outcomes assessment in mental health care that is rooted in client-centered functional outcomes. Since little consensus exists on which instruments are most effective, this article begins with an outline of broadly accepted principles for assessment of patient outcomes in mental health. Next, we describe a practical method for selecting outcomes measures in interdisciplinary settings. Finally, we offer pragmatic solutions to address barriers to outcome assessment.