ABSTRACT WEST AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD SEEKING PSYCHOLOGICAL HELP Research is needed to better understand the impact of migration on West African immigrants’ mental health and their ability and willingness to seek traditional Western care. Therefore, the present quantitative study investigated the variance in attitudes toward seeking psychological help as predicted by degree of acculturation, severity of self-reported problems, and beliefs about the cause of mental health problems among West African immigrants in the U.S. The following research questions and hypothesis were addressed: What are the specific mental and physical health concerns of West African immigrants in the U.S.? Where do West African immigrants with mental health problems seek help? The hypothesis was that higher acculturation into the U.S. society, severity of self-reported problems, and interactional attribution beliefs about mental health problems would be significant predictors of attitudes toward seeking psychological help. Approximately 600 questionnaires were mailed to first generation West African immigrants. A total of 126 surveys were received representing a return rate of 21%. Of this number 15 were not usable. Analyses were based on the remaining 111 surveys. Each survey packet included a demographic questionnaire, a referral list for national mental health, counseling and crisis services, a business reply envelope, and a battery of 4 instruments including the Attitude Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale (ATSPPH), Behavioral Acculturation Scale (BAS), Brief Symptoms Inventory (BSI), and the Mental Health Locus of Origin Scale (MHLO). Descriptive statistics were computed (percentages & frequencies) to answer the first and second research questions. In addition, one multiple regression, using forced entry method was performed to predict West African immigrants’ attitudes toward seeking psychological help as measured by the total scores on the ATSPPH, using the BAS, BSI, and MHLO scores as predictors. Finally, Pearson product moment correlation analyses were performed among the variables in examining the regression results. The results identified interactional attribution beliefs about mental health problems as the only significant predictor. West African immigrants reported various concerns with their mental and physical health. In general, they reported preference for the use of informal systems of support to resolve their emotional concerns and the use of medical doctors for physical concerns.

This paper studied whether threats to self-esteem and goal orientation affected an individual?s propensity to ask for help. Eighty-two undergraduate students from the University of Waterloo completed a self-esteem and goal orientation questionnaire in addition to completing two tests. One test was designed to be more self-relevant than the other, making that test more potentially threatening to an individual?s self-esteem. In each test, subjects were given the opportunity to ask for help on each question. The results show that the use of social comparison motivates individuals to engage in self-protection by reducing their willingness to ask for help. In situations where many others had asked for help, help seeking behavior increased. These results extend other research in showing the impact of social comparison on individual behaviour.

Motherhood is an ideal that is ostensibly valued and rewarded in American culture. It is no wonder, then, that a disease which threatens a woman’s ability to adequately fulfill her motherly duties receives a great deal of attention. My study aims to explore how ideas about postpartum depression (PPD) are presented in popular media through an examination of the messages and advice in PPD self-help books. Findings reveal that self-help authors make two significant assumptions: motherhood is a woman’s job that should bring happiness, and when mothers are not happy medical intervention in necessary. Through their gendered assumptions about parents’ roles and their insistence on a biological explanation for PPD, self-help authors prevent a healthy dialogue that examines patriarchal structures in the institutions of family and medicine. By focusing solely on the biological factors at play when women have babies, self-help authors alienate fathers, adoptive mothers, and foster parents who experience depression without biological origins. Only when PPD is discussed within the context of our social realities can we truly understand parenthood and depression.

This paper studied whether threats to self-esteem and goal orientation affected an individual?s propensity to ask for help. Eighty-two undergraduate students from the University of Waterloo completed a self-esteem and goal orientation questionnaire in addition to completing two tests. One test was designed to be more self-relevant than the other, making that test more potentially threatening to an individual?s self-esteem. In each test, subjects were given the opportunity to ask for help on each question. The results show that the use of social comparison motivates individuals to engage in self-protection by reducing their willingness to ask for help. In situations where many others had asked for help, help seeking behavior increased. These results extend other research in showing the impact of social comparison on individual behaviour.

Uppsatsens syfte är att ur ett personalperspektiv undersöka och beskriva kunskapsläget i äldreomsorgsarbete inom hemtjänsten med brukare som har alkoholproblematik. Syftet belyses via följande frågeställningar; 1) Hur beskrivs arbete med vård och omsorg hos brukaren generellt i forskningen? 2) Hur påverkas brukarens självbestämmande och livskvalitet generellt vid behov av vård och omsorg från äldreomsorgen? 3) Hur beskrivs arbete med vård och omsorg hos brukaren med alkoholproblematik i forskningen? 4) Hur påverkas brukarens självbestämmande och livskvalitet generellt vid behov av vård och omsorg från äldreomsorgen om brukaren har alkoholproblematik? För att besvara frågeställningarna valdes selektiv kunskapsöversikt som består av 11 utvalda primärdokument. Syfte och frågor i vår uppsats analyserades och besvarades via socialkonstruktionistisk och DBO-teorin, en handlingsteori. Resultatet av uppsatsen visar att: relationen mellan personal och brukare är avgörande för brukarens självbestämmande och livskvalitet. Är relationen dålig påverkas självbestämmandet negativt då brukaren alltid kan ses vara i beroendeställning, har brukaren även alkoholproblematik kan relationen försämras då personalen i vissa fall inte vet hur de skall förhålla sig till dessa brukare. Relation byggs upp genom tid, kontinuitet och lojalitet. I ett föränderligt och flexibelt arbete som hemtjänstarbetet är, kan tid, kontinuitet och lojalitet vara en bristvara beroende på hur verksamheten styrs och är organiserad. Arbetet hos äldre med alkoholproblematik kan bli en växande problematik som äldreomsorgen inom varje kommun måste ta ställning till hur de skall hantera. Skall man acceptera olika livsstilar hos olika brukare eller skall de som är i behov av äldreomsorg dras över samma kam och alla får samma typ av insats? Hur skall framtidens äldreomsorg se ut? / Purpose of this thesis is that from a personnel perspective, examine and describe the state of knowledge in the home care work with elderly clients who have alcohol problems. The purpose is highlighted by the following questions: 1) How is work with health and care of elderly clients in generally described in the research? 2) How is the elderly client’s autonomy and quality of life in general affected when in need of home care from the eldercare? 3) How is work with health and care of clients with alcohol problems described in the research? 4) How is the elderly client’s autonomy and quality of life in general affected when in need of care from the eldercare if the patient has an alcohol problem? In order to answer the questions a selective knowledge review consisting of 11 selected primary documents was chosen. The purpose and questions in this thesis were analyzed and answered by social construction theory and DBO theory, an action theory. The result of the knowledge review shows that: the relationship between caregivers and elderly clients is crucial for the client’s autonomy and quality of life. If the relationship is bad it will affect the patient’s autonomy negatively as the client can be seen to be the dependent part, and have the client also a alcohol-related problem the relationship may deteriorate when the caregivers in some cases do not know how to respond to these clients. Relationships are built through time, continuity and loyalty. In a changing and flexible work as home care work is, time, continuity and loyalty could be scarce, much depending on how the eldercare is managed and organized. Work with clients with alcohol problems may be a growing problem that the eldercare in each community must decide how to deal with. Should different lifestyles be accepted among various clients or shall all clients who are in need of eldercare just get the same kind of help as everybody else with no acceptance of different needs? How shall the future eldercare be organized?

Abstract Author: Ellinor Carlsson and Renate Höjd Title: "When you can make a difference and when you can´t" the power relation between psychiatric disability social worker and client [translated title] Supervisor: Eva Skogman Assessor: Norma Montesino One branch of the social works field of research is the relation between social worker and client. Research has shown that the power and inequality in the relation between helper and person being helped is needed for the helper to provide help. Power is often mentioned under negative circumstances such as social workers abuse of their power position, violating the person being helped. However, Michel Foucault suggests that power is something neutral that exists in every social interaction. The negative aspects of power are effects of the parties not reaching agreement. Through Michel Foucault and Max Weber we have described how the social system affects people seeking help. With a qualitative research we have studied how social workers experience the power relation between them and their clients. We have focused on the group of people with psychiatric disability and interviewed six social workers working with that target group. Our purpose was to describe and analyze how psychiatric social workers experience their power position. Our findings suggested that the social workers have their power position in mind but not in their everyday work. They recognize both positive and negative aspects of power for them and for their clients and describes situations were they don't have power to help. This because of how the system is built and because of the client's right to say no to help. With the results in mind we have argued that social workers have a great impact on their client and his/hers experience of the encounter with the social system. Therefore it's of great importance that the power relation is discussed and taken into consideration.

There is a lack of research in the mental health field and on help-seeking regarding the Asian Indian population. Asian Indians are the third largest Asian subgroup in the United States; thus, it is important to understand their culture and lifestyle. Collectively, they are more likely to consult family and close friends rather than seek help from mental health professionals. Asian Indians may not choose to discuss these problems because they feel it is unnecessary, or it could bring shame to the family. The purpose of this study was to look at the effects of acculturation on the help-seeking attitudes of Asian Indian parents and caregivers when considering seeking help for their children. Inclusion criteria included parents and caregivers of children ages 7-17, who are 18 years of age or older, of Asian Indian ancestry, have resided in the U.S. for at least one year, and who have been the primary caregiver for at least 6 months. Measures used examined culture, acculturation, help-seeking attitudes, and some basic demographic information. The survey was available online as well as on paper to be returned to the researcher. A total of 89 participants, the majority of whom were mothers and well-educated, completed the survey. Participants were recruited at community events, at a temple in Houston, and through family members and friends by emailing the online link. Analyses of the data indicated that acculturation does not impact openness to seek mental health services, level of mental health stigma, and intentions to seek mental health services. It was also shown that openness and stigma do not mediate the relationship between acculturation and the intention to seek mental health services. Finally, the top sources of help indicated by the Asian Indians in this study are intimate partners, mental health professionals, and doctors or general practitioners. There were participants who had taken their children to see a professional before, but opinions varied regarding its helpfulness. It is hoped that this study will provide valuable information to inform mental health professionals about an understudied population and to continue to emphasize the importance of understanding diversity and what that means for school psychology and the mental health field.

Traditionally human resource functions are performed in house, but recently the subject on outsourcing human resources is becoming more and more popular. According to an article published in 2004 by the INC. 500 magazine, 18 human resource service providers were chosen to be the most fast growing corporations in the US, in the mean time, the Fortune 500 and Forbes 500 corporations lists both had human resource business process outsourcing firms listed inside. The development of global temporary help service industry has been around for more than fifty years and the growth rate of temporary help industry in each country has been increasing steadily. Meanwhile, the Executive Yuan of Taiwan has chosen this business as one of the most industry among its 12 selected important developing service industries. The competition in temporary help has getting more and more severe than usual, but restricted to its uncompleted legal regulation, there are many staffing vendor didn¡¦t obey the legal regulation, besides the difference between temporary help service and outsourcing is still ambigious. In this study, case study approach and the in-depth interview technique were employed. The main objective is to find out what current difficulties are the temporary help agencies facing and what kind of solution do they use to cope with the business needs. Furthermore, by applying relevant solution to form the suggestions to provide to staffing industry for the operation reference The inference of this study is that Taiwan is more cost oriented compared with other countries in US, Japan and Germany in the consideration of using temporary help service; as for the development of professional temporary help service, there is no clear definition on it, besides, the temporary help service agency in Taiwan is not yet able to provide this service. The temporary help service agencies in Japan expect relevant law in temporary help service can be loosen to develope this industry better, the temporary help service agencies in Taiwan expect a clearer definition between responsibility and obligation in user enterprise and temporary help service agency. The pricing war in this industry in Taiwan would form the barrier of better service due to limited profit while other countries had understood different service level deserves different price. New pension policy implemented in Taiwan in 2004 would encourage more enterprises understand the advantage of using temporary help service, but not definitely boost the promising development of this industry.

<p>The help desk serves as the first support level for solving IT problems but sometimes they have their own problems. These problems can be linked to the lack of access to the right knowledge which could be solved by implementing knowledge management so that agents have all the knowledge they need available to them when they need it. There is statistical data available to confirm that, by implementing this knowledge management-centric approach, there is a significant improvement in throughput and reduced times spent on calls. Yet there seems to be that there is no research available to show us the cultural, process, resource and responsibility impact of knowledge management in this environment. This is the focus of this project and by creating a special knowledge management system prototype, for a working help desk, these aspects are analyzed. The results show a minimal culture barrier, more structured processes, better access to resources and increased responsibilities.</p>

<p>Abstract</p><p>Author: Ellinor Carlsson and Renate Höjd</p><p>Title: "When you can make a difference and when you can´t" the power relation between psychiatric</p><p>disability social worker and client [translated title]</p><p>Supervisor: Eva Skogman</p><p>Assessor: Norma Montesino</p><p>One branch of the social works field of research is the relation between social worker and</p><p>client. Research has shown that the power and inequality in the relation between helper and</p><p>person being helped is needed for the helper to provide help. Power is often mentioned under</p><p>negative circumstances such as social workers abuse of their power position, violating the</p><p>person being helped. However, Michel Foucault suggests that power is something neutral that</p><p>exists in every social interaction. The negative aspects of power are effects of the parties not</p><p>reaching agreement. Through Michel Foucault and Max Weber we have described how the</p><p>social system affects people seeking help. With a qualitative research we have studied how</p><p>social workers experience the power relation between them and their clients. We have focused</p><p>on the group of people with psychiatric disability and interviewed six social workers working</p><p>with that target group. Our purpose was to describe and analyze how psychiatric social workers</p><p>experience their power position. Our findings suggested that the social workers have their</p><p>power position in mind but not in their everyday work. They recognize both positive and negative</p><p>aspects of power for them and for their clients and describes situations were they don't</p><p>have power to help. This because of how the system is built and because of the client's right</p><p>to say no to help. With the results in mind we have argued that social workers have a great</p><p>impact on their client and his/hers experience of the encounter with the social system. Therefore</p><p>it's of great importance that the power relation is discussed and taken into consideration.</p>