High-profile shootings and student suicides have made mental health issues on college campuses a major national issue. College students are usually the focus of this conversation, while little attention beyond anecdotal accounts has been paid to faculty with mental health issues. In response to this lack of broad-scale research, a first-of-its-kind cross-institutional survey of faculty with mental disabilities was conducted. Respondents self-identified as faculty with mental disabilities, mental illness or mental-health histories. Results from 267 respondents indicated that nearly 70% had no or limited familiarity with accommodations, and even fewer used them (87%). A majority of respondents (62%) disclosed to at least one person on campus, primarily colleagues (50%) and department chairs (21%). Respondents felt most supported by spouses/significant others (75% very or extremely supported) and friends (51%) rather than colleagues (29%) and supervisors (25%). In our discussion of these findings, we offer suggestions for practice that will improve environments, rather than focusing on case-by-case "fixes" for those who disclose. We also suggest directions for further research into this topic, which is frequently mentioned (in both scholarly and popular publications) but rarely investigated systematically or on a wide scale.
Involvement with child protective services (CPS) can have detrimental effects on children and parents alike. This study provided updated information about the prevalence of parenting among individuals with a serious mental illness and established the first contemporaneous and comparative national prevalence estimates of CPS involvement for parents with and without a serious mental illness.Methods: Data came from the Truven Health Analytics PULSE national survey of 42,761 adults conducted between September 2014 and December 2015. Survey questions assessed the presence of a serious mental illness, parenting status, contact with CPS, and types of CPS involvement.Results: Prevalence of parenthood was similar between individuals with (69%) and without (71%) a serious mental illness. Parents with a serious mental illness were approximately
Depression is a serious mental disorder that is estimated to affect roughly 16% of individuals at some point in their lives (National Institute of Mental Health, 2005). In any one-year period in the United States, mood disorders affect 11% of adults and 6% of children (Woo & Keating, 2008). Furthermore, rates of depression are increasing, while the age of onset is decreasing. Some researchers have described this era as "the age of melancholy" (Schotte, Van De Bossche, Doncker, Claes, & Cosyns, 2006). These authors propose that biogenetic, psychological, somatic, and societal factors trigger distress which decreases an individual's resistance to developing depressive symptoms.People diagnosed with depression typically display symptoms of discouragement, hopelessness, fatigue, insomnia, and an inability to concentrate and make decisions (American Psychiatric Association, 2006). The co-occurrence of depression with other illnesses, such as anxiety and substance abuse disorders, is related to a decrease in positive treatment outcomes, premature termination from treatment, increased symptom severity, lower levels of functioning, and higher rates of suicide (Woo & Keating, 2008). It is estimated that approximately 60% of individuals who successfully attempt suicide were experiencing a mood disorder at the time of death (Woo & Keating, 2008). Due to the high prevalence of depression, the impact it has on the lives of those affected by it, and the personal and economic costs associated with the disorder, this remains one of the most important topics of research today. Depression in Individuals With Spinal Cord Injuries (SCIs)A plethora of research has found a strong positive correlation between depression and physical disabilities, lending support to the idea that biological factors are closely tied to mental health and illness (Townend, Tinson, Kwan, & Sharpe, 2010). While depression can affect anyone, some populations have been shown to be more susceptible to the disorder. Research has suggested that individuals with disabilities are up to four times more likely to have a major depressive episode than people without a disability (Turner & McLean, 1989). In particular, it has been found that individuals with SCIs have a high prevalence of depression (Fann et al., 2011). SCIs typically cause the individual varying 512210R CBXXX10.1177/0034355213512210Rehabilitation Counseling BulletinO'Shea and Smedema research-article2013
Purpose: Campus counseling centers, which oversee the provision of mental health services, can play a vital role in supporting positive outcomes among college students in general; however, little remains known about the effectiveness of campus-based counseling for reducing academic and psychological distress among college students with disabilities. The purpose of the current study was to examine the effectiveness of individual campus-based counseling for students with disabilities and to determine whether the effectiveness of counseling varied by student disability status. Method: Data for the present study were gathered by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health from the 2016-2019 academic years. Participants consisted of help-seeking students with only psychiatric disabilities (n = 643), students with disabilities other than only psychiatric disabilities (n = 3,833), and students without a disability (n = 54,576). Results: Results indicated that students with disabilities demonstrated significantly fewer reductions in levels of psychological and academic distress than their nondisabled peers, and analyses further revealed variation by disability type. Conclusions: These findings advance our understanding of the effectiveness of campus counseling services for improving pertinent outcomes among help-seeking college students with disabilities. Implications for clinical practice, theory, and future research are discussed. Impact and ImplicationsThe findings reveal that while students with and without disabilities reported similar levels of general psychological distress at baseline, students with disabilities experienced fewer reductions in academic and psychological distress than students without disabilities over the course of treatment. These results suggest that campus-based counseling may be less effective at addressing and ameliorating academic and psychological stress in students with disabilities in comparison to their peers. Counselors and staff at university counseling centers should be aware of the issues and barriers that students with disabilities may face; however, they should also be mindful of their own implicit assumptions about the capacity of students with disabilities to succeed and should not assume that students' presenting concerns are limited to disability-related issues.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.