Intergroup relations and Muslims’ mental health in Western societies

This review article proposes that theories and research of intergroup contact, prejudice, and acculturation, enhance understanding of the current intercultural relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in Western societies, such as in Australia. The actual and perceived prejudice that many Muslims studying, working, and living in the West have been experiencing following the 2001 terrorist attacks, adds an additional layer of stress to the psychosocial adjustment of Muslim immigrants and sojourners, affecting their cross-cultural adaptation and mental health. Stephan and colleagues’ Integrated Threat Theory argues that the perceived threat experienced by all parties, explains the acts of prejudice. Berry’s acculturation framework highlights that adaptive acculturation is determined by congruent host nation policies and practices and immigrant acculturation strategies. Implications for multicultural policy, intercultural training, and mental health practice, and suggestions for future research, are discussed.

Mental health outcomes for unemployed individuals who attend occupational skills / personal development training programs

Four studies report on outcomes for long-term unemployed individuals who attend occupational skills/personal development training courses in Australia. Levels of distress, depression, guilt, anger, helplessness, positive and negative affect, life satisfaction and self esteem were used as measures of well-being. Employment value, employment expectations and employment commitment were used as measures of work attitude. Social support, financial strain, and use of community resources were used as measures of life situation. Other variables investigated were causal attribution, unemployment blame, levels of coping, self efficacy, the personality variable of neuroticism, the psycho-social climate of the training course, and changes to occupational status. Training courses were (a) government funded occupational skills-based programs which included some components of personal development training, and (b) a specially developed course which focused exclusively on improving well-being, and which utilised the cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) approach. Data for all studies were collected longitudinally by having subjects complete questionnaires pre-course, post-course, and (for 3 of the 4 studies) at 3 months follow-up, in order to investigate long-term effects. One of the studies utilised the case-study methodology and was designed to be illustrative and assist in interpreting the quantitative data from the other 3 evaluations. The outcomes for participants were contrasted with control subjects who met the same sel~tion criteria for training. Results confirmed earlier findings that the experiences of unemployment were negative. Immediate effects of the courses were to improve well-being. Improvements were greater for those who attended courses with higher levels of personal development input, and the best results were obtained from the specially developed CBT program. Participants who had lower levels of well-being at the beginning of the courses did better as a result of training than those who were already functioning at higher levels. Course participants gained only marginal advantages over control subjects in relation to improving their occupational status. Many of the short term well-being gains made as a result of attending the courses were still evident at 3 months follow-up. Best results were achieved for the specially designed CBT program. Results were discussed in the context of prevailing theories of Ynemployment (Fryer, 1986,1988; Jahoda, 1981, 1982; Warr, 1987a, 1987b).

Getting that piece of paper : mental health nurses' experience of undertaking doctoral studies in Victoria, Australia

The aim of this study was to explore the experience of mental health nurses undertaking doctoral studies. The study was conducted in Victoria, Australia. A descriptive exploratory approach to inquiry was used for this study. Participants were mental health nurses who had successfully completed a doctoral qualification. Eligibility for inclusion required participants to be residing in Victoria (irrespective of where their doctoral studies were undertaken) and to have conducted their research within the domain of mental health and/or currently employed in the field of mental health nursing. Of the 20 potential participants invited, 16 accepted the invitation. Five emergent themes were explicated from narrative analyses. These themes were being a trail blazer, positioning for professional advancement, achieving a balance between competing priorities, maintaining a commitment to the development of the profession, and a point of affirmation. An understanding of the experience of undertaking doctoral studies can be used to influence the development of strategies to encourage more mental health nurses to consider undertaking a doctoral degree.

Concurrent and prospective associations between physical activity, walking and mental health in older women

Background Leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) shows promise for reducing the risk of poor mental health in later life, although gender- and age-specific research is required to clarify this association. This study examined the concurrent and prospective relationships between both LTPA and walking with mental health in older women. Methods Community-dwelling women aged 73–78 years completed mailed surveys in 1999, 2002 and 2005 for the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health. Respondents reported their weekly minutes of walking, moderate LTPA and vigorous LTPA. Mental health was defined as the number of depression and anxiety symptoms, as assessed with the Goldberg Anxiety and Depression Scale (GADS). Multivariable linear mixed models, adjusted for socio-demographic and health-related variables, were used to examine associations between five levels of LTPA (none, very low, low, intermediate and high) and GADS scores. For women who reported walking as their only LTPA, associations between walking and GADS scores were also examined. Women who reported depression or anxiety in 1999 were excluded, resulting in data from 6653 women being included in these analyses. Results Inverse dose–response associations were observed between both LTPA and walking with GADS scores in concurrent and prospective models (p<0.001). Even low levels of LTPA and walking were associated with lowered scores. The lowest scores were observed in women reporting high levels of LTPA or walking. Conclusion The results support an inverse dose–response association between both LTPA and walking with mental health, over 3 years in older women without depression or anxiety.

Vulnerability factors for disaster-induced child post-traumatic stress disorder : the case for low family resilience and previous mental illness

Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate whether parent report of family resilience predicted children’s disaster-induced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and general emotional symptoms, independent of a broad range of variables including event-related factors, previous child mental illness and social connectedness. ---------- Methods: A total of 568 children (mean age = 10.2 years, SD = 1.3) who attended public primary schools, were screened 3 months after Cyclone Larry devastated the Innisfail region of North Queensland. Measures included parent report on the Family Resilience Measure and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)–emotional subscale and child report on the PTSD Reaction Index, measures of event exposure and social connectedness. ---------- Results: Sixty-four students (11.3%) were in the severe–very severe PTSD category and 53 families (28.6%) scored in the poor family resilience range. A lower family resilience score was associated with child emotional problems on the SDQ and longer duration of previous child mental health difficulties, but not disaster-induced child PTSD or child threat perception on either bivariate analysis, or as a main or moderator variable on multivariate analysis (main effect: adjusted odds ratio (ORadj) = 0.57, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.13–2.44). Similarly, previous mental illness was not a significant predictor of child PTSD in the multivariate model (ORadj = 0.75, 95%CI = 0.16–3.61). ---------- Conclusion: In this post-disaster sample children with existing mental health problems and those of low-resilience families were not at elevated risk of PTSD. The possibility that the aetiological model of disaster-induced child PTSD may differ from usual child and adolescent conceptualizations is discussed.

A longitudinal study of the relationship between lifestyle and mental health among midlife and older women in Australia : findings from the Healthy Aging of Women Study

We investigated the temporal relationship between lifestyle and mental health among 564 midlife women. The mental health measured included anxiety, depression, and mental well-being; the lifestyle measures included body mass index (BMI), exercise, smoking, alcohol use, and caffeine consumption. We found that BMI was positively related with mental well-being (r = .316, p = .009); smokers had lower mental well-being than nonsmokers (β = 6.725, p = .006), and noncaffeine drinkers had higher mental well-being (β = 5, p = .023). Past alcohol-drinkers had less anxiety than nondrinkers (β = 1.135, p = .04). Therefore, lifestyle is predictive of mental health among midlife and older women.

Adapting to the work-life interface : the influence of individual differences, work and family on well-being, mental health and work engagement

Bronfenbrenner.s Bioecological Model, expressed as the developmental equation, D f PPCT, is the theoretical framework for two studies that bring together diverse strands of psychology to study the work-life interface of working adults. Occupational and organizational psychology is focused on the demands and resources of work and family, without emphasising the individual in detail. Health and personality psychology examine the individual but without emphasis on the individual.s work and family roles. The current research used Bronfenbrenner.s theoretical framework to combine individual differences, work and family to understand how these factors influence the working adult.s psychological functioning. Competent development has been defined as high well-being (measured as life satisfaction and psychological well-being) and high work engagement (as work vigour, work dedication and absorption in work) and as the absence of mental illness (as depression, anxiety and stress) and the absence of burnout (as emotional exhaustion, cynicism and professional efficacy). Study 1 and 2 were linked, with Study 1 as a cross-sectional survey and Study 2, a prospective panel study that followed on from the data used in Study1. Participants were recruited from a university and from a large public hospital to take part in a 3-wave, online study where they completed identical surveys at 3-4 month intervals (N = 470 at Time 1 and N = 198 at Time 3). In Study 1, hierarchical multiple regressions were used to assess the effects of individual differences (Block 1, e.g. dispositional optimism, coping self-efficacy, perceived control of time, humour), work and family variables (Block 2, e.g. affective commitment, skill discretion, work hours, children, marital status, family demands) and the work-life interface (Block 3, e.g. direction and quality of spillover between roles, work-life balance) on the outcomes. There were a mosaic of predictors of the outcomes with a group of seven that were the most frequent significant predictors and which represented the individual (dispositional optimism and coping self-efficacy), the workplace (skill discretion, affective commitment and job autonomy) and the work-life interface (negative work-to-family spillover and negative family-to-work spillover). Interestingly, gender and working hours were not important predictors. The effects of job social support, generally and for work-life issues, perceived control of time and egalitarian gender roles on the outcomes were mediated by negative work-to-family spillover, particularly for emotional exhaustion. Further, the effect of negative spillover on depression, anxiety and work engagement was moderated by the individual.s personal and workplace resources. Study 2 modelled the longitudinal relationships between the group of the seven most frequent predictors and the outcomes. Using a set of non-nested models, the relative influences of concurrent functioning, stability and change over time were assessed. The modelling began with models at Time 1, which formed the basis for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to establish the underlying relationships between the variables and calculate the composite variables for the longitudinal models. The CFAs were well fitting with few modifications to ensure good fit. However, using burnout and work engagement together required additional analyses to resolve poor fit, with one factor (representing a continuum from burnout to work engagement) being the only acceptable solution. Five different longitudinal models were investigated as the Well-Being, Mental Distress, Well-Being-Mental Health, Work Engagement and Integrated models using differing combinations of the outcomes. The best fitting model for each was a reciprocal model that was trimmed of trivial paths. The strongest paths were the synchronous correlations and the paths within variables over time. The reciprocal paths were more variable with weak to mild effects. There was evidence of gain and loss spirals between the variables over time, with a slight net gain in resources that may provide the mechanism for the accumulation of psychological advantage over a lifetime. The longitudinal models also showed that there are leverage points at which personal, psychological and managerial interventions can be targeted to bolster the individual and provide supportive workplace conditions that also minimise negative spillover. Bronfenbrenner.s developmental equation has been a useful framework for the current research, showing the importance of the person as central to the individual.s experience of the work-life interface. By taking control of their own life, the individual can craft a life path that is most suited to their own needs. Competent developmental outcomes were most likely where the person was optimistic and had high self-efficacy, worked in a job that they were attached to and which allowed them to use their talents and without too much negative spillover between their work and family domains. In this way, individuals had greater well-being, better mental health and greater work engagement at any one time and across time.