Introduction: Visual methodologies are a collection of methods used to understand and interpret images. These methods have been used for a long time in anthropology and sociology; however, they are a relatively new way to research for the majority of disciplines, especially health research. Two effective visual methodologies that could be used in health research are autophotography and photo elicitation. Autophotography: Autophotography is asking participants to take photographs of their environment and then using the photographs as actual data. Autophotography captures the world through the participant's eyes with subsequent knowledge production. Photo Elicitation: Photo elicitation is using photographs or other visual mediums in an interview to generate verbal discussion to create data and knowledge. Different layers of meaning can be discovered as this method evokes deep emotions, memories, and ideas. Photo elicitation interviews contribute to trustworthiness and rigor of the findings through member checking. Mental Health Research: This article aims to describe the use of autophotography and photo elicitation to compare people with clinically diagnosed depression and people without depression and their ideas about sources of meaning in life and beliefs about the meaning of life. The analytical approach incorporates eight steps. Firstly, data analysis began during the interviews, then came organizing the data, coding the data, structured analysis, detailed analysis, interpretative analysis, creating themes, and the write-up. The steps taken to ensure trustworthiness were Shenton's credibility, transferability, confirmability, and dependability. This method is a new, innovative, and viable method for mental health researchers.

The aim of this integrative literature review was to identify high quality empirical research and theoretical literature on the sources of meaning in life and people's beliefs regarding the meaning of life. This will inform current mental health clinical practice and research by providing a synthesis of empirical and theoretical literature. Failure to address meaninglessness or the existential crisis can lead to psychopathologies such as depression, anxiety, addiction, aggression, hopelessness, apathy, lower levels of well-being, physical illness, and suicide. Integrative literature reviews incorporate empirical research and theoretical literature. The inclusion criteria were primary research and theoretical papers and books by prominent theorists. Thirty-nine items underwent the critical appraisal process. Thirty-two papers or books were included. Overwhelmingly the results revealed that relationships, particularly relationships with family, are cited as the most important source of meaning in people's lives in all cultures and age groups. There was no consensus identified to answer the meaning of life question. These results and future research will allow mental health clinicians to help patients deepen their understanding of themselves, identify where they find meaning and understand their beliefs about meaning of life, contributing to a reduction in symptomatology and meaninglessness, and an increase in happiness, life satisfaction, positive affect, better coping, psychosocial health and well-being, and more meaningfulness in life.

Understanding what influences people to donate, or not donate, body organs and tissues is very important for the future of transplant surgery and medical research (Garrick in J Clin Neurosci 13:524-528, 2006). A previous web-based motivation survey coordinated by the New South Wales Tissue Resource Centre found that most people who participated in brain donation were young, female, educated Australians, not affiliated with any particular religion, and with a higher prevalence of medical illness than the general Australian population. It discussed the main motivating factors for brain donation to be "the benefits of the research to medicine and science". This study has been replicated in a paper-based version to capture a broader cross-section of the general population, to find out who they are and what motivates them to donate. All consented and registered brain donors (n = 1,323) were sent a questionnaire via the post and recipients were given 3 months to complete the questionnaire and return it in a reply paid envelope. Results were entered into the original web-based survey and analyzed using SPSS version 10. Six hundred and fifty-eight questionnaires were returned completed, a response rate of 53%. The results show that people from all age groups are interested in brain donation. The over 65's are the largest of the groups (30.7%). The majority of the participants were female (60.6%), married (49.2%) with children (65.8%), employed (52.9%) and have a tertiary education (73.3%). They were either non-religious (48.2%) or Christian (41.6%) and were mostly Australian (65.4%). Most (81%) had pledged to donate other organs and tissues for transplantation. The most commonly cited reasons for the donation were to benefit science (27.6%), to benefit medicine (23.9%), a family illness (17.5%) and to benefit the community (16.6%). This study demonstrates that people across all age groups are interested in brain donation. Recruitment of new brain donors could target the over 65 female Australians, who are not religious or Christian and who have also donated other organs and tissues for transplant purposes. It also indicates the need to make donation for research part of the national transplant donation program.

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