This qualitative research examines graduate international students’ experiences, in particular, their mental health during their acculturation process to McMaster University. This study specifically investigates the challenges graduate international students encounter while pursuing their studies, how these challenges impact their mental health, and the strategies they develop to manage these challenges. Drawing from the findings, policy recommendations are provided for relevant school stakeholders, and implications for theorists to consider as they relate to international students’ mental health in their particular social identity are presented as well. This research study is organized under a critical framework. Critical theory (CT) is mainly used to do data analysis and to generate knowledge about graduate international students’ mental health as well as reveal the hidden structures of their experience. Individual, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six graduate international students from different departments, countries, ages, and genders, to examine a variety of interpretations of the graduate international student experience at McMaster. Key themes, including challenges encountered as international students, conceptualizing mental health, and factors affecting their mental health struggles, are also discussed. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

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The purpose of this study was to examine police officer response to individuals suffering with mental illness. There had been little prior research that used qualitative methods and explored police officers in rural areas. Several research questions were explored, including stigmatizing beliefs held by police officers toward individuals with mental illness, perceived levels of preparedness, challenges experienced by police officers, improvements officers wish to see implemented, and the impact of Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT) training. This study gathered data through semi-structured interviews with 19 police officers who worked in East Tennessee in order to address the research questions. The results from this study provided an understanding of how both CIT-trained and non-CIT-trained police officers respond to individuals suffering with mental illness in rural areas and what changes they would like to see implemented to improve response.

Mental health services suffer the substantial limitation of helping only those who seek their assistance. Previous research has demonstrated that mental health stigma, including social and self-stigma, is one of the most significant barriers to an individual seeking available mental health services. Additionally, low levels of social proximity to mental illness may be a significant factor in increased social and self-stigma. Informed by ecological systems theory, this research examined demographic (i.e., gender, race/ethnicity, university) and social proximity factors (i.e., level of familiarity with mental illness and mental health services) that contributed to the mental health stigma associated with seeking mental health services within a university population. Web-based survey responses from 410 undergraduate students at two universities were obtained. A series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that while controlling for gender, race/ethnicity, and university, having personally received mental health services predicted lower levels of mental health self-stigma. Consistent with previous findings, a significant predictive quality of social stigma towards self-stigma was also found. However, none of the models utilizing social proximity factors to predict social stigma were significant. Implications for practice and future research are discussed. / Ph. D.

This research compares the relationship satisfaction and mental health of parents of children diagnosed with Autism or Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) to parents of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and parents of normative children. The analytical sample was obtained from the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health, and ANOVA statistical procedures were used to analyze the data. Results indicate that significant differences exist in relationship satisfaction and mental health between mothers of children with Autism or ASD and mothers of either children with ADHD or ADD or normative children. No significant differences were found between fathers. Implications for clinicians working with this population, as well as suggestions for future research are discussed. / Master of Science

Yes / An extensive literature documents the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, while a nascent one is beginning to detail the mental health impact. A limitation of existing work is that reported findings generally cannot be taken as causal estimates. In this study, we use a large-scale longitudinal survey coupled with a differences-in-differences research design to estimate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in the United Kingdom. We report substantial increases in psychological distress for the population overall during the first wave. These impacts were, however, not uniformly distributed with the costs in terms of mental health being much more pronounced for females, younger cohorts, the BAME community, and migrants. We also looked beyond socio-demographics to identify characteristics of the individual and their living environment which can predict who was least resilient to the mental health effects associated with the first wave. We find that people with financial worries, feeling lonely or living in overcrowded dwellings experienced significantly worse mental health deterioration during the first wave, ceteris paribus. / Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2999-01-01

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2999-01-01

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2999-01-01

No / Mental ill health in the workplace is a high profile issue, but what are the starting points for successful policies and interventions?