Objective:In this study, the authors investigated the longitudinal effect of the recovery attributes of peer support workers (PSWs) on users of mental health services in Hong Kong over a 9-month ...period.Methods:Recovery attributes were measured among PSWs (N=26) employed by four local nongovernmental organizations before their commencement of service. The recovery-related outcomes of regular service users (N=181) were measured every 3 months for 9 months. Multilevel mixed-effects linear regression analyses with restricted maximum likelihood were used to analyze the possible association of PSWs’ qualities on service users’ recovery outcomes. The Holm-Bonferroni method was used to adjust for p values to account for multiple comparisons.Results:Results showed that levels of hope and self-esteem among PSWs were statistically significantly associated with improvements in hope and empowerment among service users over time.Conclusions:PSWs’ recovery attributes may benefit service users’ personal recovery. Future exploration on the specific pathways of recovery attributes of PSWs on service users’ recovery is suggested.
How can occupational therapists identify partnerships in human services that tend to generate competition rather than a coherent mission? How can we form creative partnerships with consumers (service ...users) and professionals when distrust and service inflexibility seem to prevail? A creative partnership has to start from an empathetic listener with a secure sense of self who seeks to build an effective two-way relationship. A creative idea in human services is about simplicity and practicality. In the context of providing clinical services, it is paramount to work with a family or a whanau, or significant others. Building on one's strengths is another hallmark of a creative partnership.
Knowledge construction is a form of communication in which people can work individually or collaboratively. Peer support services have been adopted by the public psychiatric and social welfare ...service as a regular form of intervention since 2015 in Hong Kong. Peer-based services can help people with bipolar disorder (BD) deal with the implications of the diagnosis, the way in which individuals with BD receive treatment, and the lifestyle changes that take place as a result of the diagnosis. Through a qualitative paradigm, this study aims to examine how individuals with BD use technical and expert-by-experience knowledge.
A total of 32 clients of mental health services were recruited from hospitals, Integrated Community Centers for Mental Wellness, and non-governmental organizations. They participated in semi-structured individual interviews. All interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using thematic analysis with the aid of NVivo. The findings were verified by peer researchers.
Three main themes are presented in this article, including how clients made sense of the knowledge provided by mental health professionals and peer support workers (PSWs), critical perspectives about peer support services, and the way in which the services are more than knowledge transfer alone. Participants generally indicated that knowledge sharing revolved around three experiences: mood changes, medications, and sense of hope. Nevertheless, an empathic understanding of the clients' experience was more important than the sharing of knowledge. Some clients perceived medication as the chief means to recovery, so PSWs were not useful for them. However, PSW role models had an effect beyond mere knowledge transmission, as they could promote clients' pursuit of functional recovery goals.
The present study has improved our understanding of knowledge sharing between clients with BD and health professionals or PSWs, which should take place in an empathic and hope-instilling manner. It has also emphasized the value of the presence of a role model who can speak convincingly with clients to facilitate recovery. The present findings can be used to improve the care of people with BD by generating important guidance with regard to enhancing the knowledge exchange between clients and health practitioners.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract
Background
The university years are a developmentally crucial phase and a peak period for the onset of mental disorders. The beliefs about the changeability of negative emotion may play an ...important role in help-seeking. The brief digital growth mindset intervention is potentially scalable and acceptable to enhance adaptive coping and help-seeking for mental health needs in university students. We adapted the Single-session Intervention on Growth Mindset for adolescents (SIGMA) to be applied in university students (U-SIGMA). This protocol introduces a two-armed waitlist randomized controlled trial study to examine the effectiveness and acceptability of U-SIGMA in promoting help-seeking among university students in the Greater Bay Area.
Methods
University students (
N
= 250, ages 18–25) from universities in the Greater Bay Area will be randomized to either the brief digital growth mindset intervention group or the waitlist control group. Participants will report on the mindsets of negative emotions, perceived control over anxiety, attitude toward help-seeking, physical activity, hopelessness, psychological well-being, depression, anxiety, and perceived stress at baseline and the 2-week and 8-week follow-ups through web-based surveys. A 30-min digital intervention will be implemented in the intervention group, with a pre- and post-intervention survey collecting intervention feedback, while the control group will receive the link for intervention after 8 weeks.
Discussion
This protocol introduces the implementation plan of U-SIMGA in multi-cities of the Greater Bay Area. The findings are expected to help provide pioneer evidence for the effectiveness and acceptability of the brief digital intervention for university students in the Chinese context and beyond and contribute to the development of accessible and effective prevention and early intervention for university students’ mental health.
Trial registration
HKU Clinical Trials Registry: HKUCTR-3012; Registered 14 April 2023.
http://www.hkuctr.com/Study/Show/7a3ffbc0e03f4d1eac0525450fc5187e
.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Background: Current models of user participation in mental health services were developed within Western culture and thus may not be applicable to Chinese communities.
Aims: To present a new model of ...user participation, which emerged from research within a Chinese community, for understanding the processes of and factors influencing user participation in a non-Western culture.
Method: Multiple qualitative methods, including focus groups, individual in-depth interviews, and photovoice, were applied within the framework of constructivist grounded theory and collaborative research.
Results: Diverging from conceptualizations of user participation with emphasis on civil rights and the individual as a central agent, participants in the study highlighted the interpersonal dynamics between service users and different players affecting the participation intensity and outcomes. They valued a reciprocal relationship with their caregivers in making treatment decisions, cooperated with staff to observe power hierarchies and social harmony, identified the importance of peer support in enabling service engagement and delivery, and emphasized professional facilitation in advancing involvement at the policy level.
Conclusions: User participation in Chinese culture embeds dynamic interdependence. The proposed model adds this new dimension to the existing frameworks and calls for attention to the complex local ecology and cultural consistency in realizing user participation.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VSZLJ
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental disorders worldwide. In Hong Kong, 7% of adolescents are diagnosed with anxiety disorders, and 1 in every 4 secondary school students reports ...clinical-level anxiety symptoms. However, 65% of them do not access services. Long waitlists in public services, the high cost of private services, or the fear of being stigmatized can hinder service access. The high prevalence of anxiety and low intervention uptake indicate a pressing need to develop timely, scalable, and potent interventions suitable for adolescents. Single-session interventions (SSIs) have the potential to be scalable interventions for diagnosable or subclinical psychopathology in adolescents. Providing precise and context-adapted intervention is the key to achieving intervention efficacy.
This study aims to compare the effectiveness of three SSIs: single-session intervention of growth mindset on negative emotions (SIGMA), SSI of growth mindset of personality (SSI-GP), and active control, in reducing adolescent anxiety.
Adolescents (N=549, ages 12-16 years) from secondary schools will be randomized to 1 of 3 intervention conditions: the SIGMA, SSI-GP, or active control. The implementation of each intervention is approximately 45 minutes in length. Adolescent participants will report anxiety symptoms (primary outcome), perceived control, hopelessness, attitude toward help-seeking, and psychological well-being at preintervention, the 2-week follow-up, and the 8-week follow-up. A pilot test has confirmed the feasibility and acceptability of SIGMA among adolescents. We hypothesized that SIGMA and SSI-GP will result in a larger reduction in anxiety symptoms than the control intervention during the posttest and 8-week follow-up period. We also predict that SIGMA will have a more significant effect than SSI-GP. We will use the intention-to-treat principle and linear regression-based maximum likelihood multilevel models for data analysis.
This study will be conducted from December 2022 to December 2023, with results expected to be available in January 2024.
This protocol introduces the implementation content and strategies of growth mindset SSIs (consists of 2 forms: SIGMA and SSI-GP) among school students. The study will provide evidence on the efficacy of different growth mindset SSIs for adolescent anxiety. It will also establish implementation strategies for self-administrative SSIs among school students, which can serve as a pioneer implementation of a scalable and self-accessible brief intervention to improve the well-being of young people.
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05027880; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05027880.
PRR1-10.2196/41758.
Possible selves provide a new perspective and a systematic way to learn about adolescents' envisioning of their own future. Literature shows some patterns of possible selves are universal worldwide ...while some are sensitive to context and culture. This study adapted the open-ended Possible Selves Questionnaire into Chinese and explored the general patterns of possible selves among adolescents in Chinese context. 3078 secondary school students in Hong Kong were surveyed about their possible selves and demographic factors. It is found that adolescents have more career- and school-related hoped-for possible selves and have more drug and risky behaviour feared possible selves. Adolescents have less strategy, especially concrete strategy for their possible selves. Gender and age differences were examined and potential contextual and cultural influences were discussed.
Abstract This study examined the prevalence rates of problem gambling among older adults in Singapore. A stratified sampling method was used to select the nationally representative sample of 3010 ...older adults aged 55 years and above. The survey participants were of varying ethnicities living in the community, including Chinese, Malay, and Indian (and others). A structured questionnaire, including the Canadian Problem Gambling Index, gambling attitudes and behaviors, and demographic information was administered face-to-face at participants' homes, using one of the four language versions preferred by the participants. Among those who had gambled lifetime, 69.7% (or weighted population = 39.2%) gambled in the past 12 months and 2.2% (or weighted population = .9%) met the problem gambling criteria. Individuals with problem gambling were likely to have started gambling at an younger age and to have gambled in activities characterized by continuity and no set money limits. Future research should examine changes in gambling behaviors of older adults over time in non-Western societies.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
There is an ample body of literature examining the experiences and outcomes of peer support services for mental health recovery in western countries. However, formal peer support is only recently ...adapted and piloted to alleviate depression among older people, and little is known about how the peer-to-peer model might be lived out in the older Chinese population. This qualitative study investigated peer supporters' (PS) perspectives of their roles and experiences of rendering formal peer support to community-dwelling older adults at risk of or living with depression in Hong Kong.
The study adopted a qualitative design. Five semi-structured focus groups were conducted with 27 trained peer supporters between ages 54-74 (21 females and 6 males) who had provided peer-to-peer support to older adults at risk of or living with depression in the community for at least 12 months. Thematic analysis was employed to derive content and meanings from the focus group transcripts.
Participants' mean age was 61.9 years; two-thirds of them were retired and the rest still engaged in part-time or full-time employment. Four themes were identified in relations to the roles and experiences in rendering the peer support services: (1) peerness in health and age-related lived experiences; (2) companionship, social and emotional ties beyond formal support; (3) meaningful roles to facilitate older people's functional ability; and (4) hopes and actions against the undesirable outcomes of aging. Being a PS might provide meaningful roles for persons in transition to or living in late adulthood, and enable community-dwelling older adults with depression to maintain functional ability. On the other hand, defining the concept of 'peer' beyond the shared experience of mental distress, ensuring a healthy boundary between the peers and the service users, maintaining a careful balance between time-limited formal support and stable social ties, and providing self-management training and on-going support appear crucial.
This study of PS' perspectives and experiences offer insights into the age-specific dimension of the peer relationship. Despite the promising effects it might offer, careful implementation of peer support among older adults is warranted to safeguard against the ensuing loss of meaningful social ties and the potential emotional distress.
The strengths model of case management (SMCM), which was developed by Rapp and Goscha through collaborative efforts at the University of Kansas, assists individuals with mental illness in their ...recovery by mobilizing individual and environmental resources. Increasing evidence has shown that the utilization of the SMCM improves outcomes, including increased employment/educational attainment, reduced hospitalization rates, higher self-efficacy, and hope. However, little is known about the processes through which the SMCM improves outcomes for mental health service users. This study explores the views of case workers and service users on their experience of providing or receiving the SMCM intervention.
A qualitative design was employed using individual interviews with service users and case workers drawn from two study conditions: the SMCM group and the control group (treatment as usual). For both study conditions, service users were recruited by either centres-in-charge or case workers from integrated community centres for mental wellness (ICCMWs) operated by three non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in different districts of Hong Kong. Through purposeful sampling, 24 service users and 14 case workers from the SMCM and control groups joined the study. We used an inductive approach to analyse the qualitative data.
We identified two overarching themes: service users' and case workers' (1) perceptions of the impacts of the interventions (SMCM and control group) and (2) experiences of the interventions, such as features of the interventions and the factors that facilitated the outcomes. The results showed that there were improvements in the functional recovery of the SMCM group in areas such as employment and family relationships, how self-identified goals were achieved, and how service users gained a better understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses. Regarding their experience of the interventions, participants in both the SMCM group and the control group reported that a good relationship between service users and case workers was vital. However, some concerns were raised about the use of SMCM tools, including the strengths assessment and the personal recovery plan (PRP) and the risk of case workers being subjective in the presentation of cases in group supervision sessions.
The results were promising in terms of supporting the use of the SMCM, with some refinements, in mental health services for Chinese clients.
The Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR), ACTRN12617001435370 , registered on 10/10/2017.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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