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Making Mental Healthcare Easier

This post is all about the benefits of making healthcare more accessible and easier to use. The article I’d like to discuss is about the problems of lack of care and extensive time between care that exasperates negative mental health symptoms as well as the implementation of a system called CAPA (The Choice and Partnership Approach) in hundreds of Canadian healthcare facilities. CAPA is a system that makes the process of finding physicians easier and need-based for the patients, makes transferring facilities smoother, teaches parents how to find and qualify good physicians. 

My only real issue with this article was that there was no way to replicate this data. Their information came mostly from reviews from facilities that chose to give a review of the system at all. The reason I chose this study for this blog is because the reviews that were submitted presented good data. Most facilities found that their time in-between patient visits was drastically reduced because of CAPA, and I think that’s important. Longer time between visits often exasperates negative symptoms. CAPA also helped people find therapists and doctors who were more suited to their needs, and that’s extremely important. Not every doctor or therapist is going to give you the help you need, and it takes time to find the right one. Any system that makes that easier will get a good review from me.

Here is an APA citation and link to the article:

Clark, S., Delong, E., McWilliam, S., Bagnell, A., Abidi, S., Casey, B., & Gardner, W. (2018). Improving Access to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Care: The Choice and Partnership Approach. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 27(1), 5–14. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.missouristate.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=127212638&site=ehost-live&scope=site

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Teachers are the best.

This post will be a review of another article I found in the trusty Missouri State library database. The purpose of this study and the article that followed were to demonstrate the extent of which teachers recognize mental health symptoms in students or youth in their care. It demonstrated that well-trained teachers are an asset to noticing and reporting problems in the mental wellness of student in their care, more so than they residential health care (RHC) attendants that were assessed along side of them. Prior data and observation noted that of the youth living in RHC institutions in Norway qualified for DSM diagnoses of various mental illnesses based on the criterion of duration, impairment, and onset of symptoms. Four hundred students living in RHC situations agreed to participate in a comparison study that showed a drastic difference in the amount reported by teachers and the students primary contacts.

This study demonstrated that well-trained teachers are an asset to noticing and reporting problems in the mental wellness of student in their care. It is stated in the article that teachers are often the most stable presence in the life of their students, and though they have hard and important jobs already, they are guiding students to recognizing their own mental health situations. Although, there were negative effects in both categories that should be mentioned. For instance, teachers had a tendency to assume positive health symptoms and therefore missed students who needed attention, but primary contacts often over-diagnosed the youth in their care after assuming more sickness than necessary. Neither group is perfect, but it was clear by the end of the study that people in the welfare system needed to adjust their intake process to better diagnose mental illness earlier on.

I chose to post this article, because it demostrates the value of well-educated teachers in assessing their students mental health. This adds to something I wrote in an earlier post about the necessity of promoting education about mental health in schools. Teachers who understand the symptoms and importance of reporting mental health problems have such a positive influence on their students, and I believe both students and teachers should receive adequate training on how to recognize and promote healthy mental well-being. 

Here is an APA citation and link to the article:

Undheim, A. M., Lydersen, S., & Sønnichsen Kayed, N. (2016). Do school teachers and primary contacts in residential youth care institutions recognize mental health problems in adolescents? Child & Adolescent Psychiatry & Mental Health, 10, 1–11. https://doi-org.proxy.missouristate.edu/10.1186/s13034-016-0109-4

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My therapist told me instead of hurting myself I should draw something pretty were I want to cut. This is the result. And it works, honestly. If you’re struggling with self harm I really recommend this. (Make sure you use a marker and not a pen cause pens can hurt you! )

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Self-Care Kit

= Okay, so there are a few really fun posts that I’ve been saving for this blog and this is one of them. I have had a Pinterest account since it came out in 2010 and one of the best things that has come from Pinterest is the amount of beautiful quotes and self-care tips. I found one that I particularly wanted to share on this blog. This is a link to blog run by a woman named Jessica Dimas who focuses on what she calls “sacred self-care.” Her posts are positive and about taking time to care for yourself and learning the right ways to motivate yourself.

Another great idea I found is called a coping kit. This article was put together by a group called the Canadian BFRB (Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors) Support Network. They focus primarily on obsessive-compulsive related behaviors, but I feel like their list is good for coping with any mental illness. What I liked about this list is that it’s not over-whelming with anything and focuses solely on getting you through an episode of whatever mental illness you have. It’s great for obsessive-compulsions, but it’s also great for getting through anxiety attacks.

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Because I can’t figure out why I am unable to post a link in my description, this is a link to my reference page. 

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Assessing Literacy of Mental Health in Adolescents

I want to share and review an article that I found through Missouri State University’s library database that discusses a survey conducted on a group of students in India. The researchers who wrote this article state that there is a large mental health problem in India and there are still stigmas of shame around asking for help or simply having a mental illness. A group of over three-hundred students were given a “vignette” of a person who has been diagnosed with depression and then given a questionnaire. The purpose of the survey was to measure how well these 13-17-year old students understood mental health terminology, how to recognize the symptoms that depression and anxiety present, what good management techniques are for mental illness, and to assess the students’ lingering stigmas.

I chose to read this article because I think it is important to learn about how to recognize negative mental health symptoms and how to manage mental illnesses in adolescence. Identifying and assessing one’s mental health should be included in health class and PE curriculum. The brain is a part of the human body and should be treated like an organ that can get sick and should receive the same treatment and preventative care that the rest of the body does. 

Overall, this article confirmed some of my feelings that some of the current generation of adolescents have good comprehension of what anxiety and depression are, but generally feel a lack of support in seeking help because of negative stigmas. I was surprised to learn about the stigmas of others people having a mental illness. There was a great level of acceptance that the students portrayed towards others. For example, the majority of them responded with a willingness to develop a close friendship with someone with a mental illness despite the fact that another majority of them felt ashamed of having to ask for help for themselves. Reading about this reminded me of a concept we discussed in our textbook about “personal fables”. It’s the notion that something will never happen to you despite the fact that it happens to others. 

I think it would be a useful study to replicate in the American school system. I don’t believe that adolescent students in the United States have the same literacy as the students in this study, but I’d love to be pleasantly surprised.

Here’s the APA citation and the link to the study:

- Sharma, M., Banerjee, B., & Garg, S. (2017). Assessment of Mental Health Literacy in School-going Adolescents. Journal of Indian Association for Child & Adolescent Mental Health, 13(4), 263–283. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.missouristate.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=125812325&site=ehost-live&scope=site

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Hello!

This blog is a project for my Adolescent Psychology class at Missouri State University. My goal with these posts is to impress upon my reader the importance of having good mental health practices as an adolescent and teaching our youth to value their psychological well-being.

I am a 27-year old woman who was an exemplary student in my adolescence. I participated in almost every school function, was a member (and then a leader) of multiple clubs in high school. I worked after school every night and built a savings account for college. I spent a lot of my adolescence with friends, boyfriends and achievements. All of that being said, ultimately I grew up wearing a mask so I didn’t show anything of my chaotic household, and that dictated a huge part of my life. 

I have struggled with anxiety and depression my entire life and fought tooth-and-nail to build my mental health toolbox. When I left home for college, my anxiety erupted in a such a way that my everyday life was effected. I had no coping skills, few resources and had to teach my family the best ways to support me. I woke up every day for months with panic attacks and exhausted myself trying to get through my day. After a while, I was unemployed and supported by my husband (a real life hero and the love of my life) and smoked marijuana to self-sooth and combat my insomnia. Somewhere in my unemployment and at the very depth of my depression, I decided I couldn’t live like this forever and I needed to feel happy and fulfilled. 

So I asked for help.

With love and financial support from my family, I found an incredible therapist named Morgan. Morgan is a light in the universe, and I have met very few spectacular human beings like her. For three years I worked with Morgan to untangle the knots I wove to cope with my traumas and learned to recognize and accept what I give to the world. Morgan taught me patience and self-care and the importance of having tools to deal with life’s barrage of chaos from a place of compassion and self-care. Through our efforts I realized how neglected adolescent mental health care is. I should have learned these things from my parents, counselors, and teachers. Though I am thankful for my own struggle and the power I have found within myself through it, I don’t want any other person to have to find themselves through trauma and depression. 

So, all in all, this blog will be a short project, but I hope my story and several of my other posts leave the impression that the mental health is incredibly valuable, and that we should be teaching kids and teenagers ways to handle their stress with love and compassion and patience, as well as provide them with easy-access care and resources for the hard days. 

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