“Decoding MH”—A de-stigmatization campaign in the Hong Kong Police Force

Police officers are under high level of stress given the intense and emergent work nature. If left untreated, their mental wellbeing would be at risk and work performance compromised. However, mental health stigma is common among police officers and is perpetuated by factors like police cultures emphasizing toughness and self-reliance. In view of this, since 2016, the Hong Kong Police Force had launched a holistic campaign for Force members which was the first among law enforcement organizations in Hong Kong, aiming to reduce stigma, by enhancing mental health knowledge and decreasing negative attitudes and behaviors towards mental health issues. The programme incorporated standardised trainings of the Mental Health First Aid course with examples modified to the local police context, and psychoeducation via the use of digital medium and sharing by public figures. Positive feedback was received. It was foreseen that the campaign effects would increase Force members' awareness of their mental health, encourage help-seeking and facilitate officers' decision making when encountering crises in the community.     

The Role of Racial Discrimination in the Economic Value of Education Among Urban,Low-Income Latina/o Youth: Ethnic Identity and Gender as Moderators

The present study used resilience theory to explore relationships among perceived racial discrimination, ethnic identity, gender, and economic value of education (EVE) among urban, low‐income, Latina/o youth. It was expected that racial discrimination would predict poorer perceptions of the EVE among Latina/o adolescents. Ethnic identity was hypothesized to buffer the negative effect of racial discrimination on Latina/o students’ EVE. The participants in this study were 396 urban, low‐income Latina/o high school students from a large, Midwestern city who completed surveys in both 9th‐ and 10th‐grade. Structural equation modeling was used to test the relationships among racial discrimination, ethnic identity, and EVE. Results supported a protective model of resilience. Specifically, ethnic identity served as a protective factor by buffering the negative effect of perceived racial discrimination on EVE for male participants. The present study is the first to examine ethnic identity as a buffer of racial discrimination on EVE among Latina/o high school students. Future directions and implications are discussed.     

Does Lack of “Genetic-Relative Family Health History” Represent a Potentially Avoidable Health Disparity for Adoptees?

Many adoptees face a number of challenges relating to separation from biological parents during the adoption process, including issues concerning identity, intimacy, attachment, and trust, as well as (for older adopted children) language and other cultural challenges. One common health challenge faced by adoptees involves lack of access to genetic-relative family health history (GRFHx). Lack of GRFHx represents a disadvantage due to a reduced capacity to identify diseases and recommend appropriate screening for conditions for which the adopted person may be at increased risk. In this article, we draw out common features of traditionally understood “health disparities” in order to identify analogous features in the context of adoptees’ lack of GRFHx.     

Congruency effects in dot comparison tasks: convex hull is more important than dot area

The dot comparison task, in which participants select the more numerous of two dot arrays, has become the predominant method of assessing Approximate Number System (ANS) acuity. Creation of the dot arrays requires the manipulation of visual characteristics, such as dot size and convex hull. For the task to provide a valid measure of ANS acuity, participants must ignore these characteristics and respond on the basis of number. Here, we report two experiments that explore the influence of dot area and convex hull on participants’ accuracy on dot comparison tasks. We found that individuals’ ability to ignore dot area information increases with age and display time. However, the influence of convex hull information remains stable across development and with additional time. This suggests that convex hull information is more difficult to inhibit when making judgements about numerosity and therefore it is crucial to control this when creating dot comparison tasks.     

Learning from Physical Pain to Help with the Management of Emotional Pain

There may be important similarities between chronic emotional pain and chronic physical pain. Both forms of chronic pain may promote negative beliefs about the self and the future. Chronic emotional pain and chronic physical pain both serve to disrupt patients’ focus from their actions and goals. Techniques used for the treatment of physical pain may be translated into the treatment of emotional pain. Four core strategies are reviewed including: (1) reducing catastrophic interpretations, (2) increasing tolerance by promoting acceptance, (3) cultivating positive expectations, and (4) remaining flexible in movements and attitudes. Patients can learn to tolerate limitations while pursuing their goals. Clinicians can help patients to reduce emotional pain by making a series of small changes in their thoughts and behavior.     

Psychological Empowerment Among Urban Youth: Measurement Model and Associations with Youth Outcomes

Empowerment‐based strategies have become widely used method to address health inequities and promote social change. Few researchers, however, have tested theoretical models of empowerment, including multidimensional, higher‐order models. We test empirically a multidimensional, higher‐order model of psychological empowerment (PE), guided by Zimmerman's conceptual framework including three components of PE: intrapersonal, interactional, and behavioral. We also investigate if PE is associated with positive and negative outcomes among youth. The sample included 367 middle school youth aged 11–16 (M = 12.71; SD = 0.91); 60% female, 32% (n = 117) white youth, 46% (n = 170) African‐American youth, and 22% (n = 80) identifying as mixed race, Asian‐American, Latino, Native American, or other ethnic/racial group; schools reported 61–75% free/reduced lunch students. Our results indicated that each of the latent factors for the three PE components demonstrate a good fit with the data. Our results also indicated that these components loaded on to a higher‐order PE factor (X² = 32.68; df: 22; p = .07; RMSEA: 0.04; 95% CI: .00, .06; CFI: 0.99). We found that the second‐order PE factor was negatively associated with aggressive behavior and positively associated with prosocial engagement. Our results suggest that empowerment‐focused programs would benefit from incorporating components addressing how youth think about themselves in relation to their social contexts (intrapersonal), understanding social and material resources needed to achieve specific goals (interactional), and actions taken to influence outcomes (behavioral). Our results also suggest that integrating the three components and promoting PE may help increase likelihood of positive behaviors (e.g., prosocial involvement); we did not find an association between PE and aggressive behavior. Implications and future directions for empowerment research are discussed.     

Counselors Within the Chronic Care Model: Supporting Weight Management

The Chronic Care Model developed for the multidisciplinary management of chronic diseases provides a blueprint for the integrated role of mental health counselors supporting clients with obesity seeking weight management treatment. Counselors can support clients and the team of health care professionals treating obesity within each of the 6 components of the model: (a) health care organization, (b) delivery‐system design, (c) clinical information systems, (d) decision support, (e) client self‐management support, and (f) community resources.     

Professional Decision-Making in Research (PDR): The Validity of a New Measure

In this paper, we report on the development and validity of the Professional Decision-Making in Research (PDR) measure, a vignette-based test that examines decision-making strategies used by investigators when confronted with challenging situations in the context of empirical research. The PDR was administered online with a battery of validity measures to a group of NIH-funded researchers and research trainees who were diverse in terms of age, years of experience, types of research, and race. The PDR demonstrated adequate reliability (alpha = .84) and parallel form correlation (r = .70). As hypothesized, the PDR was significantly negatively correlated with narcissism, cynicism, moral disengagement, and compliance disengagement; it was not correlated with socially desirable responding. In regression analysis, the strongest predictors of higher PDR scores were low compliance disengagement, speaking English as a native language, conducting clinical research with human subjects, and low levels of narcissism. Given that the PDR was written at an eighth grade reading level to be suitable for use with English as a second language participants and that only one-fourth of items focused on clinical research, further research into the possible roles of culture and research ethics training across specialties is warranted. This initial validity study demonstrates the potential usefulness of the PDR as an educational outcome assessment measure and a research instrument for studies on professionalism and integrity in research.     

How do Physicians Decide to Refer Their Patients for Psychiatric Genetic Counseling? A Qualitative Study of Physicians’ Practice

Psychiatric genetic counseling (PGC) is an emerging specialty discipline within the genetic counseling profession. A specialist PGC service was founded in 2012 in Vancouver, Canada, and though patient benefits have been demonstrated, many physicians do not regularly refer patients to the service despite awareness of its availability. We conducted a qualitative study involving semi-structured telephone interviews with Vancouver-based physicians who were aware of the PGC service to explore this phenomenon. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, coded, and analysed for emergent themes. Consistent with a grounded theory approach, constant comparison was employed throughout data collection and analysis. Analyses of interviews conducted with 12 physicians revealed that referral practices were informed by perceptions about the purpose of PGC and interpretation of patient cues. Physicians perceived PGC as an information-focused intervention, and considered referral when patients explicitly expressed desire for information about recurrence risk or etiology that they felt unable to adequately address themselves. Even when physicians identified psychotherapeutic benefits of PGC, patient needs of this nature were not perceived as cues prompting referral to PGC. These data suggest that further work is necessary to position PGC in physicians’ minds as a service that could potentially benefit most individuals with psychiatric disorders and their families, and that it encompasses more than information provision. It is important to increase physicians’ awareness of the complementary role that genetic counselors can play to that of the physician in providing psychotherapeutically oriented counselling about illness etiology.