Launching Ideas: Mental Health and Psychological Well-being SIG

Posted on August 28, 2017 2:18 pm MST, by Walker Ladd

Welcome to the SIG for Mental Health and Psychological Well-being Research Community Forum

Please use this forum as an opportunity to introduce yourself and to share, develop and suggest potential research ideas.

Todd Hastings | September 21, 2017 7:18 pm MST

Hello to all in the Mental Health and Psychological SIG! I value how Walker has brought us together for a focus of the utmost importance - supporting research and scholarly discourse relative to mental illness. I know we are all busy in our professional and social realities but this forum can be very powerful and deserves our attention. Though I am busy as a new faculty member at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA (to be clear since the podcast I had done with Psych U last spring indicated my prior Bloomsburg University affiliation) I am committed to service and scholarship in support of mental health awareness and challenging stigma toward people with mental illness. I am grateful to be associated with great professionals with a similar mission! Best to all!

Todd Hastings, U of Phoenix Alumnus - SAS, Nursing Education PhD

Louise Underdahl | September 22, 2017 7:09 pm MST

Welcome Todd!

Thank you for your research on factors influencing nursing students' career trajectories and decisions to work in mental health. Nurses in the 21st century are frequent targets of malpractice litigation (Fry-Bowers, 2017); while appropriate communication and documentation (APA, 2010) are recommended risk management strategies, the angst associated with labyrinthine litgation processes can be daunting (Juretschke, 2017).

Since suicide may be the most frequent catalyst for litigation against mental health professionals (Simpson & Stacy, 2004), Harned et al. (2017) correlated clinicians' reluctance to work with suicidal individuals with the magnitude of stress generated by lawsuits (Hendin, Haas, Maltsberger, Szanto, & Rabinowicz, 2004; Levin, 2005; Pilkinton & Etkin, 2003; Ruskin, Sakinofsky, Bagby, Dickens, & Sousa, 2004; Veilleux, 2011; Wurst et al., 2013; Wurst et al., 2010). The Linehan Risk Assessment and Management Protocol (LRAMP) was developed to reduce risk exposure and increase clinicians' willingness to treat suicidal patients (Harned et al., 2017; Linehan et al., 2012) al., 2012).

Researchers (Harned et al., 2017) suggest encouraging broader use of targeted assessment tools, such as the LRAMP, as a viable suicide prevention strategy. Do you agree? What other interventions might be feasible?

References:

American Psychiatric Association. (2010). Practice guideline for the assessment and treatment of patients with suicidal behaviors. Arlington, VA: Author.

Berman, A. L. (2006). Risk management with suicidal patients. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62(2), 171–184. doi:10.1037/11285-000

Berman, A. L., Jobes, D. A., & Silverman, M. M. (2006). Adolescent suicide: Assessment and intervention (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. doi:10.1037/11285-000

Berman, A. L., & Silverman, M. M. (2014). Suicide risk assessment and risk formulation part II: Suicide risk formulation and the determination of levels of risk. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 44(4), 432–443. doi:10.1111/sltb.12067

Fry-Bowers, E. K. (2017). Legal issues in nursing. Issues and Trends in Nursing, 359.

Harned, M. S., Lungu, A., Wilks, C. R. & Linehan, M. M. (2017, March). Evaluating a multimedia tool for suicide risk assessment and management: The Linehan suicide safety net. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 73(3), 308–318. doi:10.1002/jclp.22331

Hendin, H., Haas, A. P., Maltsberger, J. T., Szanto, K., & Rabinowicz, H. (2004). Factors contributing to therapists' distress after the suicide of a patient. American Journal of Psychiatry, 166, 1442–1446. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.161.8.1442

Juretschke, L. J. (2017). Anatomy of a lawsuit: The process of litigation in medical malpractice cases. Retrieved from

https://mercyhealthsystem.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/PDF_Anatomy-of-...

Levin, A. (2005). Patient suicide can extract huge toll on clinicians. Psychiatric News, 40, 10–58.

Linehan, M. M., Comtois, K. A., & Ward-Ciesielski, E. F. (2012). Assessing and managing risk with suicidal individuals. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 19(2), 218–232. 7. doi:10.1016/j.cbpra.2010.11.008

Pilkinton, P., & Etkin, M. (2003). Encountering suicide: The experience of psychiatric residents. Academic Psychiatry, 27(2), 93–99. doi:10.1176/appi.ap.27.2.93

Ruskin, R., Sakinofsky, I., Bagby, R. M., Dickens, S., & Sousa, G. (2004). Impact of patient suicide on psychiatrists and psychiatric trainees. Academic Psychiatry, 28, 104–110. doi:10.1176/appi.ap.28.2.104

Simon, R. I., & Shuman, D. W. (2006). The standard of care in suicide risk assessment: An elusive concept. CNS Spectrums, 11(6), 442–445.

Simpson, S., & Stacy, M. (2004). Avoiding the malpractice snare: Documenting suicide risk assessment. Journal of Psychiatric Practice, 10(3), 185–189. doi:10.1097/00131746-200405000-00008

Veilleux, J. C. (2011). Coping with client death: Using a case study to discuss the effects of accidental, undetermined, and suicidal deaths on therapists. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 42, 222–228. doi:10.1037/a0023650

Wurst, F. M., Kunz, I., Skipper, G., Wolfersdorf, M., Beine, K. H., Vogel, R., & Thon, N. (2013). How therapists react to patient's suicide: Findings and consequences for health care professionals' wellbeing. General Hospital Psychiatry, 35, 565–570. doi:10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2013.05.003

Wurst, F. M., Mueller, S., Petitjean, S., Euler, S., Thon, N., Wiesbeck, G., & Wolfersdorf, M. (2010). Patient suicide: A survey of therapists' reactions. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 40, 328–336. doi:10.1521/suli.2010.40.4.328

Louise

Lunthita M. Duthely | November 9, 2017 2:53 pm MST

Greetings Everyone!

I was happy to "stumble upon" the Mental Health and Psychological SIG. Perhaps not unlike others, my "day job" is a bit different from the research interests I pursue nights and weekends.

During the day, I faciliate research and care and treatment related to women living with HIV/AIDS, which I have been involved with for 30 years. I am a fairly recent grad (EdD, Sept 2015), where I focused my dissertation interventional study on meditation, positive psychology, and subjective well-being (specifically, gratitude interventions among adolescents). I have attended several conferences related to my dissertation, and two publications (finally!) were published within the past few months.

As Research Assistant Professor at the Univ. of Miami School of Medicine, I will be working towards funding and research projects where I am the principal investigator. I hope to be able to merge these two interests as a new investigator.

I look forward to a future of collaborations with this SIG focused more on psychological well-being and other strengths-based approaches to mental health and well-being.

Dr. Lunthita M. Duthely, EdD, MS

Academia.edu: https://hospicefellowship.academia.edu/LunthitaDuthelyEdDMS

Researchgate.net: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lunthita_Duthely

Walker Ladd | November 10, 2017 8:53 am MST

Welcome, Dr. Duthely!

I am excited to have you join our group. Your work in HIV/AIDS is so important. Congratulations on your recent graduation and publications. You are an inspiration. You shared that your research interests include psychological well-being, gratitude, and meditation for adolescents. For a brief time, I had a consulting business taking mindfulness training into high school curriculum and for individual clients. I found that athletic teams were very interested in performance enhancement, and parents were interested in test anxiety mitigation for their children. The brain/concussion issue for teenage athletes is huge as well.

As you know, the brain science in this area is compelling. Adolescent brains are dynamic and dopamine driven. I often have my students look at studies on the effect of different drugs or alcohol on the corpus callosum. The irreversible damage really brings it home.

I am very interested in your topic and would like to support your research and possibly collaborate. Let me know more about what you are thinking! You can share in this thread.

Welcome to the SIG and take care!

Lunthita M. Duthely | December 1, 2017 9:12 am MST

Hello Dr. Ladd,

Thank you for sharing your experience of mindfulness in high schools!

My interest and opportunity (to refrain from using the word "challenge") is to replicate and expand the work I began with my dissertation study. Collaborating with a colleague in Japan, I made a first attempt with first year college students.

Yes, definitely, let us continue to communicate and be in touch regarding possible future collaborations!

-Lunthita

Louise Underdahl | December 3, 2017 1:58 am MST

Hi Lunthita,

My interest and opportunity (to refrain from using the word "challenge") is to replicate and expand the work I began with my dissertation study.

Thank you for joining our SIG dialogue. Your élan, talent, and tenacity inspire admiration and respect. Like you, I am interested in developing my dissertation research on work attitudes and am grateful for our collaboration on factors contributing to physician engagement.

During a recent American Society of Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM) webinar, "The Clinician and Staff Support Toolkit: Navigating Your Way to Developing a Clinician and Staff Support Program," I learned about Wu's "second victim" concept: "And, although patients are the first and obvious victims of medical mistakes, doctors are wounded by the same errors: they are the second victims" (Wu, 2000, para. 2). The discussion also touched upon risk management roles of preventing litigation and healthcare organization marketing objectives to preserve institutional reputation.

What are your thoughts on the "second victim" concept?

References:

ASHRM. (2016). The clinician and staff support toolkit: Navigating your way to developing a clinician and staff support program. Retrieved from http://www.ashrm.org/education/webinars/2016-04-Clinician-and-Staff-Support-Toolkit.dhtml

Pratt, S., Kenney, L., Scott, S. D., & Wu, A. W. (2012). How to develop a second victim support program: a toolkit for health care organizations. Joint Commission journal on quality and patient safety/Joint Commission Resources, 38(5), 235-40.

Seys, D., Scott, S., Wu, A., Van Gerven, E., Vleugels, A., Euwema, M., ... & Vanhaecht, K. (2013). Supporting involved health care professionals (second victims) following an adverse health event: a literature review.International Journal of Nursing Studies, 50(5), 678-687.

Wu, A. W. (2000). Medical error: the second victim. Western Journal of Medicine, 172(6), 358.

Wu, A. W. (2000). Medical error: the second victim. BMJ Quality & Safety, 726-727

Wu, A. W., & Steckelberg, R. C. (2012). Medical error, incident investigation and the second victim: doing better but feeling worse?. BMJ Quality & Safety, 21(4), 267-270.

Louise

Lunthita M. Duthely | December 5, 2017 8:25 am MST

Hello Louise,

I thank you for sharing the concept of the "second victim". I just glened Wu's (2000) article. In a field where most individuals are high achievers, you can understand how this "second victim" phenomenon could easily plays out amongst those in the field of medicine.

Wu's (2000) practical advice is an important one: "The decisive factor will be how we handle them. Patient safety and physician welfare will be well served if we can be more honest about our mistakes to our patients, our colleagues, and ourselves" (p. 727).

References:

Wu, A. W. (2000). Medical error: the second victim. BMJ Quality & Safety, 726-727. doi:10.1136/bmj.320.7237.726

Additional content will be provided upon request.

Launching Ideas: Mental Health and Psychological Well-being SIG

Welcome to the SIG for Mental Health and Psychological Well-being Research Community Forum

Knowledge Without Boundaries

Popular Resources: KWB 2019 Summit