Bridging the Gap Between Hospital and Community-Based Mental Health Services

Depression and anxiety affect a person’s ability to move from hospital to community and engage in valued occupations. The purpose of this study was to understand the effectiveness of an occupational therapist-led transitional service for people with mood and anxiety disorders. Using a mixed-method design consisting of retrospective pre-post analysis of outcome measures and qualitative analysis of interviews with key stakeholders, statistically and clinically significant improvements were seen in depression and anxiety symptoms as well as occupational engagement after completion of the service. This study highlights the unique contributions of occupational therapist-led programing in mental health recovery.     

An investigation of the relations between stress and prospective memory

ABSTRACT

Prospective memory (PM), or remembering to perform intentions in the future, has important implications for one’s daily functioning and quality of life. Another common human experience is stress. Despite the significance and ubiquity of both PM and stress, our understanding of the relations between them is limited. The aim of the current study was to further delineate the relations between acute stress, chronic stress, non-focal event-based PM, and time-based PM. The results of the study revealed that acute stress induction after PM intention formation did not contribute to differences in non-focal event-based PM performance or time-based PM performance. However, self-reported chronic stress was significantly correlated with enhanced monitoring and time-based PM. In the present study, participants may have had optimal levels of enduring stress that contributed to enhanced monitoring behaviour (i.e. the prospective component of PM) and the ability to complete time-based intentions.     

EVALUATING THE FEMINIST CHALLENGE TO RESEARCH IN PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: 1963-1983

Multiple indices for evaluating the feminist challenge in psychology are identified, and provide a context for discussing selected aspects of research in personality and social psychology that reflect the impact of feminism on psychology. Women's involvement in the research process, the types of research methods used, and substantive concerns were examined in selected issues of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology between 1963 and 1983. Despite a significant increase in the proportion of articles with female authors, there were no clear changes in any of the methodological variables we assessed. Comparisons of these studies and those published in the Psychology of Women Quarterly suggest that the impact of the feminist challenge is far more noticeable in this more explicitly feminist journal. Evidence pertaining to the relative impact of publishing in explicitly feminist versus "mainstream" journals, derived from analyses of citation frequency of several feminist studies, was examined. Overall, results suggest that feminist values may have affected research topics more than research methods within personality and social psychology. Several implications of this gatekeeping function of methodology are discussed.