Educational Psychologists (EPs) spend much of their time working with school staff to solve problems. Staff often report perceptions of high levels of stress, overwork and lack of time to plan and implement changes indicating frequent experience of poor mental well-being. There has been a recent increase in awareness of promoting the well-being of children and young people, however, little attention appears to have been focused as yet upon the school staff who will promote and support this agenda.Research in schools has tended to focus on teachers rather than including all staff. There is a preponderance of research clarifying contributors to teachers’ stress and, to a lesser extent describing interventions in schools. However, little research has focused on school staff understanding and value of well-being and about perceptions of interventions carried out in schools. This study aimed to obtain a greater understanding of the perceptions of school staff about well-being, the value they placed upon it and the experience and perceived impact of taking part in a study aiming to promote staff well-being. An 8 week intervention was carried out in a primary school with weekly sessions of a project which was known as ‘Chill and Chat’. Data was gathered via questionnaires completed before and after the project and 3 focus groups held before, during and after the project. Data was analysed using thematic analysis.It was found that well-being was seen as important, however, colleagues with poor mental well-being were ‘pathologised’. ‘Learning’ to cope and maintain positive well-being was perceived as a responsibility of the staff member. Staff perceived the informality of provision to support their well-being as important and valued the time to develop better relationships with colleagues rather than ‘working relationships’ and also feeling valued and cared for. Staff reported perceptions of greater efficacy in the classroom, increased job satisfaction and feeling calmer in the classroom. The most significant limitation of the study was the continuation of provision to support staff mental well-being which requires commitment and understanding from school senior management teams and local authority members regarding the impact that increased well being can have on teaching and learning and a shift of thought towards focusing on positive well-being promotion rather than managing poor well-being.There are implications for EP practice and research in helping school staff reflect on their well-being and actions that they can take as a team to promote well-being in school. EPs can also be instrumental in disseminating research findings highlighting the impact of staff mental well being on teaching and learning.

Background: Participating in meaningful activities, and maintaining identity, are each embedded within best practice guidelines to improve mental well-being among older adults in the United Kingdom. Food plays a part in many meaningful activities that are important to health and wellbeing. Although there is moderate evidence that participating in food activities contributes to identity maintenance and change, only six studies include British older adults. Aim: To explore the relationship between food activities and identity maintenance among community-living older adults in West London. Methods: A concurrent mixed-methods design from a pragmatist perspective was used. Data collection included semi-structured interviews with 39 older adults (60 to 89 years). Qualitative data were analysed using grounded theory methods. Quantitative methods were used to investigate the relationship between demographic data, transformed qualitative data, and the Occupational Performance Measure of Food Activities. Q methodology data were analysed using centroid factor estimation and interpretation, and triangulated with the qualitative and quantitative components using qualitative matrix analysis and quantitative methods. Findings: This study found three predominant past and present identities as ‘food-lover’, ‘non-foodie’ and ‘not bothered’. These food identities are defined as a composite sense of who one is, derived from one’s experience of participating in food activities. Maintenance of food identities was explained in the processes of ‘Participation and maintenance’, ‘Threat and compensation’, and ‘Changes in meaning and identity’. These processes varied according to the importance and meaning of food activities for each participant. There was no consistent relationship between maintenance or change in food identities, and participants’ hoped-for, feared and expected possible selves. Conclusions: Participation in food activities maintains older adults’ important identities and mental wellbeing when food activities are an important and pleasurable part of daily life. Nevertheless, older adults whose food activities and identities change continue to experience mental well-being in later life.

This thesis examines women’s participation in community groups, in order to investigate the concept of ‘social capital’ and its implications for women’s mental well-being. Its aim is to examine the concept of social capital, and the ways it is linked with health, in a way that is attentive to gender and class inequity. For the purposes of this thesis, social capital is broadly defined as social relationships between people and the individual or community level ‘resources’ that can arise from these social relationships. Two different conceptualisations of social capital were considered in this study: the ‘communitarian’ approach associated with Robert Putnam, and the more ‘critical’ conceptualisation associated with Pierre Bourdieu. This research adopted a critical stance towards social capital, and focused upon four research questions: Firstly, what was the nature of participation in community groups among women who live in metropolitan Adelaide? Secondly, what were the personal outcomes that were perceived to arise from women’s community group involvement? Thirdly, what were the differences in the nature and perceived outcomes of women’s community group participation, according to social and economic factors? Finally, how did the nature and perceived outcomes of women’s participation in community groups relate to the ways they experienced their mental health and well-being? This study used qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate these questions. The quantitative analysis provided a preliminary investigation to complement the qualitative study, and involved the analysis of questionnaire data from 968 women in two contrasting areas of Adelaide. This analysis considered sociodemographic differences in the type and frequency of women’s involvement. The qualitative research involved the analysis of in-depth interviews with 30 women. The interviews explored the participants’ experiences of community group involvement; the personal outcomes that they felt arose from their involvement, their ‘lay accounts’ of their mental health, and how they felt community group involvement was connected with their mental well-being. This study found that women’s participation was shaped by gender and aspects of economic, cultural and ‘informal’ social capital. The qualitative data illustrated that women’s involvement was influenced, motivated and constrained by the gendered nature of their roles and responsibilities. These findings also highlighted contrasts among the participants in the types of involvement they undertook, and the personal outcomes of their involvement, according to their levels of material, financial and social advantage. This was supported by the quantitative findings, which revealed that the respondents’ participation in community groups, the type of group involvement they undertook, and the frequency of their involvement varied according to sociodemographic measures. The qualitative findings also identified how community group participation could lead to both positive and negative outcomes for individual women. Many participants reported the ways in which they felt their involvement enhanced their mental well-being. The qualitative data also illustrated how involvement could detract from mental well-being. In some instances, the negative consequences of participation had a severe and detrimental impact upon mental health. The findings of this study offer support to feminist criticisms of communitarian approaches to social capital, and to Bourdieu’s critical approach to understanding the concept. The study concludes that Bourdieu’s conceptualisation offers greater potential for considering how community group participation and ‘social capital’ can be used as a strategy to promote women’s health and mental well-being.

This dissertation describes the results of a two year anthropological investigation into the concept of mental well being among the working class Afro-Surinamese population in Paramaribo, Suriname. More specifically, the research investigated how working class Afro-Surinamese in Paramaribo, Suriname define and maintain their sense of mental well-being, given their unique ethnic identity within a multi-ethnic and multicultural society, and given that their environment is heavily compromised by negative globalizing forces Over the course of two years a total of 62 people contributed information through group and individual interviews, which was supplemented by information obtained through participant observation. Findings show a highly complex system of mental well being that consists of a number of interlocking and interdependent factors, which, when kept in a harmonious relationship with each other, are presumed to bring mental well being. There are unique Afro-Surinamese measures available for strengthening mental well being based in rich and historical cultural traditions that are currently under-utilized, but have the potential to be revived and introduced for the benefit of peoples mental well being. Suriname was selected as a Caribbean country that struggles in a marginalized political and economic position in regards to the rest of the Caribbean, and in relation to the world powers. Suriname is also a Dutch Caribbean country about which little academic information has been published. This research aimed to bring forth a story of a globally marginalized people, and particularly of a population of African descent. It aimed to bring attention to the concept of mental well being among African Diaspora people, and to use the story of a small population as a starting point to connect with and look at other populations, Diaspora based or otherwise. Theoretical viewpoints of African Diaspora, Globalization, and a combination of Black Feminist/Third World Feminist/Caribbean Feminist theories were used to guide and shape this research. Lastly, an attempt was made to introduce the concept of Spirituality as a new and complementary aspect of ethnographic methodology.

No description available.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Canterbury, 2007. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 79-89). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Previous research shows a positive correlation between exercise and mental health. Additionally, researchers have found that college students experience immense stress resulting in poor mental health. However, limited research has been conducted on the direct impact of active participation in intramural sports on college students’ mental well-being. The researchers sought to study this relationship. For the purposes of this mixed-methods study, 200 college students attending either the University of Arkansas or John Brown University ages 18-23 completed a survey that assessed both their mental well-being and the extent to which they participated in intramural sports. Of these 200 participants, 12 were interviewed in order to gain more insight into the lived experience of college students. The results of the survey show there is a statistically significant correlation between participation in intramural sports and the participants’ mental well-being. Furthermore, the interviews revealed intramurals’ impact on mental well-being through social benefits, stress relief, and competition.

The research aimed to investigate the effects of creative activity on stress and anxiety levels. The reasons for this proposed direction of study was to investigate the reasons for reported success in art therapy (thus strengthening its standing in the scientific psychological community), to examine whether creative activities could be used to benefit the mental well-being of people in general and to study the link between creativity and mental well-being. This was accomplished through the following means: Patients from MuelMed hospital’s rehabilitation centre took part in a creative intervention. Patients took the SCL-90-R before painting for about an hour and then filled in the SCL-90-R again. A control group was also selected who also filled in the SCL-90-R to ascertain their stress levels. The mean score’s of the two groups was compared as well as the before and after scores of the experimental group. The MMSE (Mini Mental Status Exam) was used to screen patients, so that only those patients cognitively capable of participating in the study took part in the experiment. For the most part the MMSE was a useful tool to screen patients. In the experimental group, there was no statistically significant difference between the before and after scores on the SCL-90-R. Because the experimental group showed no difference, only one measure of the control group was taken, which also did not differ significantly from the scores of the experimental group. Reasons for the lack of statistical significance is discussed, and may be due to a lack of reported initial stress levels. Despite the lack of a statistically significant findings, it is suggested that further studies be conducted to establish the role creativity plays in mental well-being. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Psychology / unrestricted

Bakgrund: Att leva med epilepsi har en fysisk och psykisk påverkan på livet. Huvudfokus har länge legat på att behandla själva anfallen men hur livet och livskvaliteten påverkas i ett heltäckande perspektiv är lika viktigt. Det finns ett kunskapsglapp om epilepsi som leder till osäkerhet kring diagnosen och bidrar till att fördomar, diskriminering och stigmatisering lever kvar. Vi vill undersöka hur personer med epilepsi upplever att leva med diagnosen, för att bidra till ett bättre bemötande och en ökad livskvalitet. Syfte: Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur människors livskvalitet påverkas av att leva med epilepsi. Metod: Litteraturöversikt med kvalitativa och kvantitativa vetenskapliga artiklar. Artiklarna analyserades med WHO:s definition av livskvalitet med dess sex olika domäner som utgångspunkt. Resultat: Livskvaliteten påverkades negativt för personer med epilepsi inom samtliga domäner. Positiva aspekter återfanns under flera domäner men inte i samma omfattning som de negativa. Det psykiska välbefinnandet var den viktigaste komponenten för livskvalitet. De övriga domänerna hade en viktig roll i hur utfallet för det psykiska välbefinnandet blev. Slutsats: Livskvalitet för personer med epilepsi är beroende av det psykiska välbefinnandet, positiva och negativa aspekter påverkar det psykiskt välbefinnande och därmed livskvaliteten. Förändring av epilepsisjukvården med ett större fokus på det psykiska välbefinnandet skulle öka livskvaliteten för många personer med epilepsidiagnos. / Background: Living with epilepsy have a physical and psycohological impact on life. For a long time main focus has been on treating the seizures, but how life and the quality of life is effected for people with epilepsy in a broad perspective is equally important. There is a knowledge-gap about epilepsy that leads to uncertainty around the diagnosis and contributes to the prejudices, discrimination and stigmatization that surrond epilepsy lives on. We want to examine how peolpe with epilepsy experience living with epilepsy, to contribute to better treatment and a increased quality of life. Aim: The aim of this study is to examine how peoples quality of life is affected by living with epilepsy. Method: A literature review based on qualitative and quantitative studies. The collected data is analyzed using WHOs’ definition of quality of life with its six domains as a foundation.  Results: The quality of life was negatively affected for peolpe with epilepsy in all of the domains. Positive aspects was found in several domains, but not in the same extent as the negatives were. The psychological well-being was the most important component for quality of life and the other domains had a significant roll regarding the outcome of the psychological well-being. Conclusion: The quality of life for people with epilepsy is dependent on the psychological well-being, with positive and negative aspects affecting the psychological well-being and thereby the quality of life. A change of the care for people with epilepsy with more focus on the mental health would increase the quality of life for many persons with a epilepsy diagnosis.

From being an unemployment success story, Sweden was during the 1990s thrown into a European normality, with apparent high and persistent unemployment. This has made unemployment a central issue in the Swedish public debate as a social problem directly affecting hundreds of thousands of individuals. In the public debate there is however no consensus on what characterises the experience of unemployment. One perspective emphasises the role of employment for self-realisation. Unemployment here becomes a very destructive experience, due to the psychosocial value attached to employment. An alternative perspective instead views employment as a necessary evil that brings little satisfaction to those who participate in it. From this perspective unemployment mean very little to those struck by it outside the possible negative effects on income (which are minimised by the welfare state). The objective of this thesis has been to move beyond the postulated truths of what the experience of unemployment means. It uses an empirical approach in order to investigate the consequences of unemployment for mental well-being, and to develop an understanding of the reasons for this relationship. The following conclusions can be drawn from the five articles that make up the thesis. In line with previous international and Swedish research, the thesis shows that unemployment as compared to employment is in general a distressing experience. This does however not mean that we can draw the simple conclusion that unemployment represents misery and employment represents the absence of misery. The thesis finds the relationship to be more complex than so. There is a need to take into account more of the possible variations in status available both on and outside the labour market. Different exit routes from unemployment were found to have different consequences for the mental well-being of the unemployed individual. Further, the evidence in the thesis shows that there is variation in the impact of unemployment on mental well-being within the unemployment group. We should, thus, not talk about the experience of unemployment, but rather about varying unemployment experiences. The general effect of unemployment on mental well-being, and the variation in the unemployment experience, was in turn shown to be mainly dependent on two factors. Firstly on the psychosocial need for employment in a society where employment is the norm. Secondly, on the economic need for employment in a society where employment, as the thesis also shows, for many still is necessary for adequate economic resources. / <p>Härtill 5 uppsatser.</p> / digitalisering@umu