As much as the psychosocial nature of mental illness cannot be ignored, it is generally agreed that social ties play a beneficial role in the maintenance of psychological well-being. Small social networks, few close relationships, and low perceived adequacy of social support and quality of life have all been linked to depressive symptoms. Conversely, the challenges of establishing a causal relationship to social ties are generally greater for mental health than they are for other health outcomes. The purpose of the present study was to identify the association between social capital and overall psychological well-being among Canadian citizens aged 12 and older, by conducting a secondary analysis of microdata using the 2009/2010 cross-sectional Canadian Community Health Survey. The present study included a weighted sample of 124,188 individuals aged 12 years or older who participated in the Canadian Community Health Survey from 2009-2010. Ordinal regression was used to examine the association between self-perceived mental health and social capital in the context of community involvement and sense of belonging in the community. Respondents who felt a sense of belonging in their local community reported mental health superior to individuals who did not have a community-based sense of belonging. This association was explained by respondent’s age, sex, marital status and was mediated by voluntary organization membership and immigration status. Results provided evidence of a relationship between elements of social capital and mental health. Positive social relationships and civic engagement are relevant to positive mental health. / Thesis (Master, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2013-11-22 00:31:17.297

Schizophrenia is a devastating mental disorder that affects around 1% of the world’s population, characterized by the presence of positive symptoms including hallucinations and delusions, negative symptoms including depression and anxiety, and cognitive impairment including deficits in speech and memory. The complete etiology of schizophrenia is not yet understood, though it is known that both genetics and environmental factors play a role. One environmental factor, a chronic cerebral infection by the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, has one of the highest correlations with schizophrenia of any environmental factor, and may play a role in the pathology of the disease. This is especially true in the case of Type I toxoplasma, which is the most virulent of the three common strains of the parasite. Toxoplasmosis causes an increase in dopamine levels in the striatum and substantia nigra through the production of two enzymes that mimic the rate limiting enzyme in dopamine synthesis, tyrosine hydroxylase. Increased dopamine concentrations in these areas are experimentally correlated with positive schizophrenia symptoms. In addition, toxoplasmosis causes chronic upregulation of the kynurenine pathway via INF- release, leading to chronically elevated kynurenic acid levels. This leads to dysfunction of the glutamatergic system via (1) the binding and inhibition ofα7- nicotinic receptors, leading to decreased GABAergic inhibitory activity in the hippocampus and decreased glutamate release in the prefrontal cortex, and (2) NMDA and AMPA receptor hypofunction, causing decreased inhibitory signaling by GABAergic neurons leaving glutamatergic neurons in a hyper-excitable state. These mechanisms, compounded by commonly identified mutations in the genes of schizophrenic individuals affecting the dopaminergic system, the kynurenine pathway,α7-nicotinic receptors, and the glutamatergic system, create a viable theory as to how the interplay between genetics and toxoplasmosis could cause schizophrenia.

Inledning: Den psykiska ohälsan rapporteras öka och debatten tilltar vad gäller bristande resurser. En oreglerad sektor står fri att erbjuda sina tjänster. Svenska kyrkan är en aktör och kyrkan har en lång tradition av att erbjuda samtal. Verkligheten utmanar och den ökade psykiska ohälsan ställer eventuellt nya krav på kompetens. Frågeställningar: Hur beskriver intervjupersonerna uppdraget att erbjuda samtal? Hur beskriver intervjupersonerna varför konfidenten söker samtal?  Hur upplever de sin kompetens och sitt fortbildningsbehov? Metod: Data har samlats in, i hermeneutisk anda och med en induktiv ansats, genom kvalitativa djupintervjuer. Materialet har bearbetats i en innehållsanalys. Resultat: Resultatet visar att uppdraget att erbjuda samtal å ena sidan är något självklart, men å andra sidan otydligt. Begreppet själavård och dess innebörd går det att tänka olika kring och störst samstämmighet råder om vad det är man inte erbjuder, nämligen psykoterapi. Samtalsmottagningen fungerar som ett sätt att tydliggöra vad det är man kan, och vad man inte kan, erbjuda. Resultatet pekar på att relationer och måendet i vardagen är det man främst söker för. Samt att såväl inre motiv (upplevd samhällsstress, existentiella frågor) som yttre motiv (öppenhet i samhället, kostnadsfria samtal, blivit rekommenderad) påverkar. Uppdraget framträder oklart och resonemang om kompetens och fortbildning likaså. Sammantaget visar studien att frågor som rör identitet, det unika i det man erbjuder förblir oklart, samt att gränser av olika slag, som vilken kompetens som är lämplig, frågor om ramar och handledning, lämnas till det enskilda sammanhanget att ta ställning till. / Introduction: Mental illness is recognized to be increasing, and the debate is growing in terms of lack of resources. An unregulated sector is free to offer their services. The Swedish church is an unregulated authority and the church has a long tradition of offering discourses. The reality is challenging and the increased mental illness puts potential new requirements on competence. Questions: How do the interviewees describe the mission to offer discourses? How do the interviewees describe why the patients ask for discourses? How do they experience their skills and training needs? Methodology: Collection of data through qualitative depth-interviews with a hermeneutical and inductive approach. The material has been processed in a content analysis. Result: The result illustrates that the mission to offer discourses is on one hand obvious, but on the other hand indistinct. The concept of church counseling and its content allow differentiations in mindset, and consensus is primarily existing in regards of what is not offered, namely psychotherapy. The discourse-therapy helps to clarify what church counseling can offer and what cannot be offered. The result indicate that relationships and the everyday well-being are the main-topics in the discourses. In addition inner motives (e.g. perceived everyday stress and existential questions) and external motives (e.g. openness in society, free calls, have been recommended) also influence why patients look for discourse therapy. The counseling task seems unclear as well as the reasoning regarding competence and further training. Overall, the study shows that questions regarding identity – the uniqueness in what is offered in church counseling remains unclear, and that various limitations and level of suitable competence for discourse-therapy is handed over to the individual context to decide on.

Bakgrund: Psykisk ohälsa ökar i samhället och är ett allvarligt folkhälsoproblem. Negativ attityd och diskriminering är vanligt i mötet med personer med psykisk ohälsa. Patienter har upplevt att de blivit annorlunda behandlade och att de inte fått vara delaktiga i sin vård. Sjuksköterskan har ett juridisk och etiskt ansvar att upprätthålla en god attityd och bedriva icke-diskriminerande vård för att undvika kränkningar av patientens rättigheter. Tidigare forskning tyder på osäkerhet och oro hos sjuksköterskan vid vård av patienter med psykisk ohälsa på somatiska vårdavdelningar. Syfte: Att beskriva sjuksköterskans upplevelse av att vårda patienter med psykisk ohälsa på somatisk vårdavdelning. Metod: En litteraturöversikt baserad på tio vetenskapliga artiklar varav sex var kvalitativa och fyra var kvantitativa. Artiklarna söktes fram i databaserna Cinahl Complete och PsycINFO. Resultat: Resultatet presenteras utifrån fyra huvudteman; Sjuksköterskans syn på sig själv, Sjuksköterskans syn på patienten, Sjuksköterskans känslor och Sjuksköterskans upplevelse av miljön. Sjuksköterskorna upplevde kunskapsbrist och hade differentierad attityd och fördomar mot patientgruppen. Känslor som rädsla och oro samt miljöaspekter var faktorer som försvårade vårdandet. Diskussion: Diskussionen är uppdelad i två delar, metoddiskussion och resultatdiskussion. I metoddiskussionen diskuteras metodens styrkor och svagheter och i resultatdiskussionen diskuteras resultatet utifrån Barkers omvårdnadsteori och konsensusbegreppet “vårdande” som är det centrala i teorin. / Background: Mental illness is increasing in today’s society and is a serious public health problem. Negative attitudes and discrimination is common against people with mental illness. Some patients experience that they have been treated differently and that they are not involved in their own care. The nurse has a legal and ethical responsibility to maintain a good attitude and to conduct non-discriminatory care to avoid violations of patient rights. According to previous research nurses feel insecure and concerned regarding the care of patients with mental illness in somatic wards. Aim: To describe nurses' experience of caring for patients with mental illness in somatic wards. Method: A literature review based on ten scientific articles, of which six were qualitative and four were quantitative. Articles were sought out in the databases Cinahl Complete and PsycINFO. Results: The results are presented in four main themes; The nurse’s view on him-/herself, the nurse’s view on the patient, the nurse’s feelings and the nurse’s perception of the environment. Nurses experienced a lack of knowledge and had different attitudes and prejudices towards patients with mental illness. Feelings such as fear and anxiety, as well as environmental aspects were factors that aggravated the caring. Discussion: The discussion is divided in two parts, the method discussion and the result discussion. In the method discussion the method’s strengths and weaknesses are discussed. The result discussion discusses the results based on Barker’s nursing theory and its central term, “caring”.

Psykisk ohälsa förekommer i yrkeslivet. Att ha en hög grad av psykisk ohälsa kan leda till otrivsel på arbetet. Studien avsåg att undersöka sambandet mellan psykisk ohälsa och KASAM och arbetsrelaterad KASAM samt ålder, kön, etnicitet, anställningstid, anställningsform och befattning som kan antas vara relaterad till psykisk ohälsa. Detta undersöktes genom nio hypoteser och en frågeställning. 95 individer som arbetade inom hemtjänsten deltog i undersökningen och besvarade en enkät bestående av KASAM-skalan, arbetsrelaterade KASAM-skalan samt General Health Questionnarie 12. Via korrelationer och regressionsanalyser undersöktes materialet. Resultatet visade att hemtjänstpersonal med hög grad av psykisk hälsa hade en hög grad av KASAM och arbetsrelaterad KASAM, samt att andra faktorer såsom anställningsform och ålder relaterar till viss del med psykisk ohälsa. Studien gav en indikation på att höga värden på KASAM och arbetsrelaterad KASAM ger förutsättningar för individerna att klara av stressorer bättre, som också påverkar psykisk ohälsa

This study was designed to investigate the possibility of relationships among sociometric status, prognosis, and selected personality variables of state hospital patients.

Twenty-four psychiatric staff, 24 clinically depressed inpatients, and 24 nondepresssed schizophrenic patients at a state psychiatric facility completed five tasks under either reward or punishment conditions. Each task consisted of 30 trials of pressing or not pressing a button to make a light appear. Monetary reinforcement was contingent on light onset for the final ten trials of each task. Cash incentives for judgment of control accuracy were added for Tasks 3, 4, and 5. Cognitive functioning was evaluated on each task by measuring expectancy, judgment of control, evaluation of performance, and attribution. Mood and self- esteem were measured before and after the procedure. No significant differences were observed across mood groups for expectancy of control or judgment of control accuracy. Subject groups also did not differ in the attributions they made or in how successful they judged their performances to be. They set realistic, attainable criteria for success which were consistent with relevant conditional probabilities. Subjects in reward gave themselves more credit for task performance than subjects in punishment gave themselves blame for comparable performances. Punishment subjects demonstrated more stable, external attributions than those in reward. Across tasks, subjects overestimated when actual control was low and underestimated when actual control was high. Contrary to the "depressive realism" effect described by Alloy and Abramson (1979), clinical depressives did not display more accurate judgments of control than did nondepressives. All subjects appeared to base their control estimates on reinforcement frequency rather than actual control. Subjects showed a type of illusion of control for high frequency, low control tasks. Presumably, success in turning the light on led them to assume that their actions controlled light onset. Comparison to previous subclinical studies suggests a possible curvilinear relationship between judgment of control accuracy and level of psychopathology, with mild depressives displaying relatively greater accuracy than either nondepressives or clinical depressives.

This study evaluated the role of asymmetric processing of information in depression. Depression has been hypothesized to involve a deficit in the global processing of information (Tucker, 1982). This type of global processing has been manipulated through the use of hypnosis by Crawford and Allen (1983). In the current study, a 3 x 2 ANCOVA design allowed the comparison of three groups of subjects on their performance on a perceptual task measuring global perception. The task chosen was designed by Navon (1977) and consisted of designs which differed on global or local features. The groups were screened with the Beck Depression Inventory, the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, and the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory, yielding 46 subjects divided into three groups of right-handed males and females. The experimental group consisted of high susceptible depressives from the community. The controls were one group of high susceptible normals and one of low susceptible depressives. All groups performed the Navon task under both waking and hypnosis conditions. Analysis of the results revealed a main effect for group (F(2, 86) = 9.60, p < .01) on the global scores. In addition, high social desirability scores predicted slower presentation times. However, hypnosis was not effective in creating a significant change in performance on the dependent measure. The results are discussed as support for the hypothesized differences between depressives and normals. Differences between the measures used in the present study and that of Crawford and Allen suggest that hypnosis may mediate imagery at a conceptual level but not at the level of the primary visual-perceptual system.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Educational Leadership / Kakali Bhattacharya / Royce Ann Collins / How can an adult make meaning from and develop through experiences of mental illness, spiritual awareness, and death? The purpose of this autoethnographic bildungsroman is to explore how a male in the general population describes how life events have influenced his identity development over a period of 23 years, spanning three decades. The researcher-participant asks two primary questions: 1) How does the individual describe his adult development in terms of life events or “individual and cultural episodes” (Smith & Taylor, 2010, p. 52) related to mental illness, spiritual awareness, and death over time? and 2) How does the individual describe his possible selves in constructing a new sense of identity? Addressing these questions contributes to the literature of adult and continuing education by providing a glimpse into stories of lived experiences over time in the light of adult development.

Psykisk ohälsa är ett växande problem i samhället och allmänsjuksköterskan möter i sitt arbete dagligen människor med psykisk ohälsa. Dessa människor upplever sig ofta osynliga i samhället och upplever även förutfattade meningar i mötet med sjuksköterskan. Forskning idag utgår mindre ofta från perspektivet hos människor med psykisk ohälsa, vilket behövs för att omvårdnaden ska kunna utvecklas. Problematiken är att sjuksköterskan många gånger möter människor utifrån deras psykiska diagnos, istället för att möta dessa människor utifrån ett helhetsperspektiv. Examensarbetet beskriver hur vuxna människor med psykisk ohälsa kan uppleva mötet med sjuksköterskan. Två teman framkommer efter sammanställning av befintlig forskning. Vuxna människor med psykisk ohälsa upplever antingen sig sedda i mötet med sjuksköterskan eller en känsla av osynlighet. Känslan av att vara sedd uppkommer när sjuksköterskan bekräftar individen genom att vara öppensinnad. Sjuksköterskan lägger ner tid i mötet genom att lyssna och att försöka förstå personens situation. En känsla av osynlighet i mötet uppkommer när sjuksköterskan förminskar personen till en diagnos. De med psykisk ohälsa upplever hinder i relationen genom att sjuksköterskan utövar makt och behandlar dem som barn. De känner sig ensamma när sjuksköterskan inte har tid för dem och inte tyckts bryr sig om dem. Genom denna studie kan sjuksköterskan få en ökad förståelse för hur vuxna människor med psykisk ohälsa upplever mötet med dem. Ökad förståelse kan förbättra relationen mellan människor med psykisk ohälsa och sjuksköterskan. Det kan även leda till en ökad känsla av hälsa hos människor med psykisk ohälsa. / Background: Mental illness has in recent years increased in society. It has since centuries been seen as a shameful disease and mental illness has not been a high priority in health care. Aim: The aim of this study was to describe how adult humans with mental illness experiences the meeting with the nurse.Method: The method that was used was a literature based study with basis in analysis of qualitative research. 11 articles with a qualitative approach was analyzed. Result: The result showed two main theme. The first theme was a feeling of being seen in the meeting when an open dialogue was used and a relationship was created. The second theme was a feeling of invisible because they felt reduced to a diagnosis and encountered obstacles in the relation. Conclusion: Adult humans with mental illness could experience the meeting in different ways. A good meeting with the nurse could increase the human with mental illness trust in healthcare. It could improve the care and relationship between human with mental illness and the nurse.