Poster Session
Impact of Mental Health Education and Supports in the Workplace
Poster Session Danielle De Graeve, Tania Williams
Mental health problems, appearing or manifesting in the workplace, are increasing in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has become apparent that workplaces need to improve their efforts to offer supports and resources to their staff. There has been a recent shift to recognize and prioritize mental health and mental health education. It is important for employers to adopt this principle and support their teams if they wish to enhance and retain their workforce. In 2023/2024, the University Health Network, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, launched wellness initiatives including workplace mental health courses, mental health first aid training, and a peer support program. Feedback gathered through surveys and usage metrics of workplace resources demonstrates the importance of having mental health resources available. It is equally important to education employees on how to utilize the resources to help themselves and their colleagues. Additionally, leaders within the organization have requested education on how to have a conversation about mental health and support their team members in crisis. Free educational offerings provided healthcare workers equal opportunities to attend and learn skills to cope with declining mental health or to recognize and offer support to those in need. Providing access to courses and resources in the workplace reduces barriers to obtaining mental health education, using available supports, and helps cultivate a psychologically healthy and safe work environment. Decreasing the negative impact associated with employee mental health issues can ultimately reduce economic costs to an organization with improved attendance, productivity, and retention.
Suicide Prevention through Literacy: Teens' Exposure to Suicide-Related Topics in Young Adult Literature
Poster Session Katherine Higgs Coulthard
According to the World Health Organization, globally the third leading cause of death for youth in 2021 was death by suicide (2024). In the United States of America, more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth have seriously considered suicide (The Trevor Project, 2020). The suicide rate among people aged 10–24 increased 62% from 2007 through 2021(Curtin & Garnett, 2023), with the number of youth deaths by suicide increasing significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic (Bridge, et al., 2023). Reducing suicidality among youth requires an immediate and comprehensive approach involving all sectors that serve the youth population. Schools and libraries are particularly positioned to lay the groundwork for this through the frequent and sustained contact they have with adolescents. Suicide clusters, defined as an increase in suicide or attempted suicide in a certain time period or location, have been associated with exposure to media depictions of suicide, as noted by an 29% increase in suicide rates following the release of the Netflix series “13 Reasons Why,” which depicts a teenager’s death by suicide (Hua, et al., 2024). It is possible that curating a collection of young adult books with suicide prevention as a major theme may help to reduce the prevalence of suicidality in youth. This poster session shares summaries of several young adult novels featuring suicide prevention and resources for using these books with adolescents.
Community-based Project to Improve Stroke Symptom and Coping Method Awareness: Disadvantaged Area Support Project of a Regional Cardiocerebrovascular Disease Center
Poster Session Heyjean Lee
Awareness of stroke symptoms and coping methods is important for symptom to treat time and prognosis. We have planned to make community based project to improve awareness and have got together with H county in G state. H county analyzes awareness level by distrcts of grassroot governance in rural area then selects one subregion. G regional cardiocerebrovascular disease center develop and train stroke symptom educators with 4.5 hour program including practices using role playing. Educators are selected in H public health center and registration and education center for hypertension and education in H county. Public health workers have educated stroke symptoms and coping methods for 237 residents in 12 senior citizens centers. 71 residents in 7 senior citizens centers are selected as control. Poster, leaflet, promotion board, and local newsletter are also installed for educated centers. H county investigate participants for before education, after 1 month, after 5 months, and after 10 months. Our results show educated participants's 5 symptom awareness are as follows; pre 10.9%, post 1 month 83.8%, post 5 month 63.8%, and post 10 month 65.2%. Unducated participants's 5 symptom awareness are as follows; pre 11.3%, post 1 month 20.5%, post 5 month 39.1%, and 10 month 34.4%. Mean number of symptoms awared among educated participants increase from 1.7 to 4.2 whereas that among uneducated participants increase from 1.8 to 3.6. Symptom awareness increases and maintains over 10 months. Community based education and promotion also seem to raise uneducated residents. It is helpful and effective.
Solution-Focused Wellness: A Brief, Preventative Intervention for First-Year College Students
Poster Session James Beauchemin
High rates of mental health challenges among college students are well-documented and have increased dramatically during the last ten years. Research has demonstrated a significant relationship between healthy lifestyle habits and mental health, with young adulthood being a critical developmental period for establishing lifestyle habits that are likely to continue throughout adulthood. Deploying prevention programs that help college students develop healthy lifestyle habits may mitigate mental health risk amongst this population and generate positive effects in later life. This study investigated the effects of a brief, six-week, solution-focused wellness promotion intervention among first year college students. Different weekly wellness domains (e.g. emotional, spiritual, intellectual, social, physical) and Solution-Focused Coaching (SFC) techniques were integrated into sessions to aid participants in identifying meaningful healthy lifestyle habits for each wellness domain. Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance (RM-ANOVA) demonstrated significant between group differences over time for healthy lifestyle (HPLP-II), F(1,121) = 13.19, p<.01; anxiety (GAD-7), F(1, 121) = 98.13, p<.01; depressive symptoms (PHQ-9), F(1, 121) – 88.56, p<.01, and well-being (WHO-5), F(1, 121) = 65.04, p<.01. Results for stress (p = .15), and resilience (p = .17) were not significant. This intervention approach demonstrated a significant relationship between healthy lifestyle habits and mental health. Utilizing a holistic approach, individuals can enhance multi-dimensional wellness (e.g. social, physical, emotional) through minor, intentional lifestyle changes, thereby mitigating mental health challenges.
Promoting Exercise Habits and Smoking Cessation in Peripheral Artery Disease Patients: Challenges and Strategies
Poster Session Rieko Mashiyama
Conservative treatment, including exercise therapy, is considered the first choice of treatment for intermittent claudication in peripheral artery disease (PAD). Among exercise therapies, supervised exercise therapy is available in a limited number of facilities and many patients do not have the opportunity to receive it due to lack of time for hospital visits or hospitalisation. Therefore, we investigated the current status of unsupervised home exercise therapy and examined the usefulness of home exercise therapy. Forty-two patients attending the Department of Vascular Surgery, Tokyo Medical and Dental University School of Medicine, with PAD, were assessed using the ‘Simple version of the facilitators and inhibitors of exercise habit scale’, the Stage Of Change for exercise behaviour (SOC), Vascu QOL-6 and WIQ questionnaires, and vascular function tests including ankle-brachial blood pressure ratio (ABI) and ABI recovery time after a one-minute treadmill walk. A calendar to record daily steps was then distributed as an aid to home exercise therapy, and the patients were re-evaluated after three months. The results show that the highest facilitating factor for PAD patients was ‘improving health and fitness’, while the inhibiting factor was ‘laziness’. It was also found that the inhibiting factor ‘laziness’ was lower for patients in the behaviour change stage maintenance phase of exercise habits than for those in the indifferent and interested phases. Furthermore, patients who used pedometers had higher VascuQOL-6 scores, more days of exercise per week and a higher proportion of those who made an effort to walk than those who did not use pedometers.
