Suchergebnisse

Background:Although public-academic partnerships (PAPs) to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable populations have proliferated in public care for youth, existing literature lacks information about whether PAPs lead to public care agency leaders' use of research evidence and promote youth mental health and well-being.
Aims and objectives:The document analysis was conducted to understand PAP contexts and mechanisms leading to public care agency leaders' use of research evidence. This paper introduces US public mental health and child welfare systems, shares strategies of identifying PAPs, obtaining and conducting systematic document review of PAPs, and documents analysis findings.
Methods:This project conducted document analysis of US PAPs aiming to improve mental health and promote well-being of youth aged 12–25 years.
Findings:The 23 PAPs analysed had diverse partnership goals including implementation and dissemination of research/evaluation evidence, information sharing, and prioritising and streamlining research priorities. PAPs sustained longer than 10 years had more focused goals of programme and policy evaluations and professional training, while PAPs 10 years or newer were engaged in more diverse goals. The majority of PAPs used journal articles, presentations, and multimedia as dissemination strategies of findings. Fewer than half of the PAPs reported on use of PAP-generated evidence in subsequent decision making by public care agency leaders.
Discussion and conclusions:Further research should examine which mechanisms link partnership contexts, PAP leaders' research evidence use, and youth outcomes improvement. Future research should also examine PAPs by detailed stages of development and ask PAP leaders directly about their evidence use.

Background and aims: The increasing prevalence of mental illness and low treatment rate presents a pressing public health issue in China. Pervasive stigma is a significant barrier to mental health recovery and community inclusion. In particular, stigmatizing or supportive attitudes held by healthcare providers could either perpetuate or mitigate self-stigma of people with mental illness. Moreover, mental health resources are unevenly distributed in China, with most of them concentrated in urban centers and provincial capitals. This study explores healthcare providers' attitudes toward mental illness and the challenges they faced at work in a rural Chinese county. Method: Four focus groups were conducted with 36 healthcare providers from a three-tier mental healthcare system in a rural county in southwestern China. Focus group discussions were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The team employed a conventional content analysis approach for data analysis. All transcripts were double-coded by three bilingual team members who are native Chinese speakers. Coding discrepancies were resolved by consensus. Results: Healthcare providers recruited from the county, township, and village levels varied in educational background, professional qualification, and experience of working with people with mental illness. Five thematic categories identified across four groups include (1) barriers to mental healthcare delivery, (2) keys to mental health recovery, (3) providers' attitudes toward providing care, (4) providers' perception toward patients and family members, and (5) providers' perception of training needs. Conclusions: This is a unique study that included healthcare providers from a three-tier healthcare system. Findings signal the importance of understanding healthcare practitioners' experiences and views to inform the design of training initiatives in rural or low-resource communities.

Background:Self-stigma exerts a range of adversities for persons with severe mental illness (SMI), however, little is known about the association between peer contact, social support and self-stigma.Aims:This study aimed to explore the mediating role of social support on the relationship between peer contact and self-stigma among persons with SMI in Hong Kong.Methods:A total of 159 persons with SMI (schizophrenia and mood disorder) in community service centres participated in the study through completing a survey on self-stigma, social functioning, social support, perception of peer contact and mass media. Logistic regression was utilised to explore the influencing factors of self-stigma among the participants.Results:The results showed that 81.1% of participants reported moderate to severe levels of self-stigma. Self-stigma was significantly associated with diverse factors (e.g. social functioning). Importantly, positive peer contact was significantly associated with lower self-stigma of persons with SMI. Social support acted as a mediator between peer contact and self-stigma.Conclusion:The results of this study suggest that contact-based interventions, such as enhancing positive peer-to-peer contact, should be conducted for reducing self-stigma among persons with SMI.