The Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health Launches 11th Annual Faces of Mental Illness Campaign

May 13, 2013 By

The Cana­dian Alliance on Men­tal Ill­ness and Men­tal Health (CAMIMH) is launch­ing the 11th annual Faces of Men­tal Ill­ness cam­paign and seek­ing nom­i­na­tions from the public.

CAMIMH is proud to orga­nize this impor­tant cam­paign, which fea­tures the faces and sto­ries of Cana­di­ans liv­ing in recov­ery with men­tal ill­ness. The cam­paign selects five indi­vid­u­als and enables them to tell their men­tal health sto­ries through pro­mo­tional mate­ri­als, in pro­file videos and through media engagement.

“The Faces of Men­tal Ill­ness are advo­cates within the men­tal health com­mu­nity. Their lived expe­ri­ences allow them to engage the pub­lic and polit­i­cal deci­sion mak­ers in a very effec­tive way,” said Dr. Karen Cohen, CAMIMH Cam­paign Chair 2013. “Their’s are sto­ries that, when shared pub­licly, help to edu­cate, reverse stigma and dis­crim­i­na­tion, and help oth­ers in recovery.”

The Faces of Men­tal Ill­ness cam­paign is a key com­po­nent of Men­tal Ill­ness Aware­ness Week (MIAW) run­ning from Octo­ber 6th-12th 2013. The cam­paign is made pos­si­ble by the gen­er­ous sup­port and com­mit­ment of Bell, CAMIMH’s Pre­sent­ing Spon­sor, as part of Bell Let’s Talk. CAMIMH is also glad to wel­come and appre­ci­ate Lund­beck Canada Inc. for their gen­er­ous con­tri­bu­tion as Pre­mier Sponsor.

“Men­tal ill­ness affects so many Cana­di­ans and their need for help is great. Although we have treat­ments, ser­vices and sup­ports that work, these are not suf­fi­ciently avail­able to peo­ple who need them. Canada must do a bet­ter job invest­ing in treat­ments, ser­vices and sup­ports and mak­ing them acces­si­ble where and when peo­ple need them. The Faces of Men­tal Ill­ness cam­paign shows Cana­di­ans that men­tal ill­ness has many faces – faces famil­iar to all of us and the faces of peo­ple who deserve respect, admi­ra­tion, and most impor­tantly, our atten­tion. The cam­paign reminds us that recov­ery is pos­si­ble, and that access to ser­vices and sup­ports is a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of this recov­ery,” con­cluded Cohen.

CAMIMH Call­ing for Sub­mis­sions from Mem­bers of the Public

To nom­i­nate a Face, please visit camimh.ca. Nom­i­na­tions will be accepted until May 31st, 2013. The 2013 Faces will be announced in late June. CAMIMH would once again like to thank their gen­er­ous spon­sors who make this cam­paign pos­si­ble: Bell, Lund­beck Canada Inc., Impact Pub­lic Affairs and Janssen.

Estab­lished in 1998, the Cana­dian Alliance on Men­tal Ill­ness and Men­tal Health (CAMIMH) is an alliance of national men­tal health orga­ni­za­tions com­prised of health care providers and orga­ni­za­tions rep­re­sent­ing per­sons with men­tal ill­ness and their fam­i­lies and care­givers. CAMIMH’s man­date is to ensure that men­tal health is placed on the national agenda so that per­sons with a lived expe­ri­ence of men­tal ill­ness and their fam­i­lies receive appro­pri­ate access to care and support.

For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:
Kalene DeBaere­maeker
Faces of Men­tal Ill­ness Com­mit­tee
Tel: 613–233-8906
Email: faces@miaw.ca

To nom­i­nate a Face, please visit camimh.ca.

 

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How can we help?

The Healthy Work­places blog is brought to you by Home­wood Human Solu­tions. We are part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion with a focus on men­tal health and addic­tions, employee and fam­ily assis­tance, dis­abil­ity man­age­ment, and long-term care for older adults. How can we help?

Home­wood Human Solutions

Nation­wide EFAP and Dis­abil­ity Pro­grams

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Program

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Home­wood Health Centre

Nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion facil­i­ties

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Schlegel Vil­lages

Con­tin­uum of care facil­i­ties for older adults (long-term care and retire­ment homes)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Have you vis­ited our Pin­ter­est site? We have many, many more info­graph­ics to peruse. Have a look here!

We’re on Google Plus!


Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

 

Canadian (Veterans) PTSD App reviewed

May 6, 2013 By

PTSD Coach CanadaWe don’t typ­i­cally men­tion spe­cific apps on the Healthy Work­places blog, but this pos­i­tive event invites men­tion because it is a Cana­dian gov­ern­ment mHealth (mobile health) initiative.

Vet­er­ans Affairs Canada (VAC) has just released the smart­phone app “PTSD Coach Canada.” (Unfor­tu­nate tim­ing in the app name, given the change to the diag­nos­tic title in the new released DSM-5).

From the Google Play store:

Together with pro­fes­sional treat­ment, PTSD Coach Canada pro­vides you depend­able resources you can trust. If you have, or think you might have PTSD, this app is for you. Fam­ily and friends can also learn from this app. PTSD Coach Canada pro­vides you with infor­ma­tion and self-help tools based on research.

The PTSD Coach Canada app can help you learn about and man­age symp­toms that can occur after trauma. Fea­tures include:

* Reli­able infor­ma­tion on PTSD and treat­ments that work

* Tools for screen­ing and track­ing your symptoms

* Con­ve­nient, easy-to-use tools to help you han­dle stress symptoms

* Direct links to sup­port and help

* Always with you when you need it

First, we very much like that this app sig­nals recog­ni­tion from the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment of men­tal health issues, and tech­no­log­i­cal advances that are chang­ing the nature of client/treatment inter­ac­tions (i.e. mHealth).

From a design stand­point we like that is light on size (for fast first-time install), and has auto-updates that will com­mu­ni­cate with your device as changes are announced and/or made.

We also like that is avail­able on the iPhone and Android devices, but it is not iPad com­pat­i­ble, which excludes a large pop­u­la­tion of users. And con­sid­er­ing that many vet­er­ans are senior now with chal­lenged eye­sight, the small app screen of a smart­phone seems prohibitive.

From a con­tent perspective:

  • We like that the usage dis­claimer is com­pre­hen­sive and warns against self-diagnosis. But we don’t like that “dis­claimer” and “setup” are rolled into one. Upon first use we were not pre­pared for set­ting things up, and had expected a menu of choices or some kind of break to note the app was switch­ing gears to a new topic.
  • That said, we like that the setup notes that you need to imme­di­ately deter­mine friends, loved ones and health pro­fes­sion­als who can help when stressed, pic­tures you find com­fort­ing or funny, and songs that are relax­ing. The instruc­tions to do all of this though, are a bit con­fus­ing and rely upon a lot of user tech knowl­edge (min­i­mal knowl­edge, but knowl­edge just the same).
  • We def­i­nitely not fond of the dark grey back­ground and white con­trast­ing text colour pal­lette. That is kind of depressing.
  • We like the audio option for lis­ten­ing to each sec­tion (e.g. “What is PTSD?”)
  • We don’t like the typo­graph­i­cal errors
  • We very much like the self-assessment mea­sure that will pro­vide ongo­ing stor­age and recall of the user’s self-assessment results, and email a reminder when the assess­ment is due. This allows for track­ing over time that could, poten­tially, influ­ence treatment-seeking, progress report­ing, iden­ti­fy­ing set­backs, etc.
  • We don’t like the place­ment of “Sched­ule Assess­ments” as a but­ton on the menu that is pre­sented after the orig­i­nal assess­ment. That orig­i­nal assess­ment asks if you want to do the sched­ul­ing and gives you options, and then this same but­ton ask the same information.
  • We find the tools for man­ag­ing PTSD of great vari­ety, easy to use, and quite inter­est­ing. For exam­ple, pos­i­tive imagery using your pre-selected calm­ing image and audio. Bet­ter still, these tools are cat­e­go­rized accord­ing to dif­fer­ent symp­toms (e.g. worried/anxious man­age­ment tools ver­sus anger man­age­ment tools).
  • We very much like the under­ly­ing treat­ment mes­sage which sup­ports cog­ni­tive behav­ioural type ther­a­pies, some­times com­bined with medication(s).
  • And we very much like the “Find Sup­port” area that uti­lizes the user’s own iden­ti­fied sup­port net­work as well as assis­tance con­tact­ing the Vet­er­ans Affairs Assis­tance Line.
  • We ques­tion, over­all, whether this app will be use­ful for the pub­lic, con­sid­er­ing the sup­port num­bers pro­vided. How­ever all other sec­tions are applic­a­ble. And there is an option men­tioned for non-Veterans con­tact assis­tance (9–1-1 but under­stand­ably noth­ing more specific).

————————————————————————————

How can we help?

The Healthy Work­places blog is brought to you by Home­wood Human Solu­tions. We are part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion with a focus on men­tal health and addic­tions, employee and fam­ily assis­tance, dis­abil­ity man­age­ment, and long-term care for older adults. How can we help?

Home­wood Human Solutions

Nation­wide EFAP and Dis­abil­ity Pro­grams

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Program

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Home­wood Health Centre

Nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion facil­i­ties

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Schlegel Vil­lages

Con­tin­uum of care facil­i­ties for older adults (long-term care and retire­ment homes)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Have you vis­ited our Pin­ter­est site? We have many, many more info­graph­ics to peruse. Have a look here!

We’re on Google Plus!


Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

 

Podcast: Exploring Psychosocial Issues in the Workplace

February 21, 2013 By

Dr. Kevin Kel­loway, the Canada Research Chair in Occu­pa­tional Health Psy­chol­ogy at Saint Mary’s Uni­ver­sity in Hal­i­fax, Nova Sco­tia explains what pos­i­tive psy­chol­ogy is and how it relates to work­place stress.

CCOHS pro­duces FREE monthly pod­casts designed to keep you cur­rent with infor­ma­tion, tips and insights into the health, safety and well-being of work­ing Cana­di­ans.
http://www.ccohs.ca/products/podcasts/
————————————————————————————

How can we help?

About Home­wood

For more than 129 years, Home­wood has been a cor­ner­stone of Cana­dian addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment. We save lives. We have helped thou­sands of Cana­di­ans for decades to cope with the dev­as­tat­ing effects of men­tal ill­ness and addic­tion. Founded in 1883, we are renowned for the qual­ity of our treat­ment, our med­ical integrity, and the breadth and depth of our inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team.

Home­wood is part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion based in Kitch­ener, Ontario, that incor­po­rates three other entities:

Home­wood Human Solu­tions (www.homewoodhumansolutions.com)

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre (www.homewood.org)

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (www.homewood.org/disability-treatment-program)

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Schlegel Vil­lages (www.schlegelvillages.com)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

Psychological Health and Safety podcast

February 21, 2013 By

Our col­league psy­chol­o­gist Merv Gilbert (Adjunct Pro­fes­sor at Simon Fraser Uni­ver­sity) and Gerry Culina, Gen­eral Health and Safety Ser­vices Man­ager at CCOHS, dis­cuss the pow­er­ful and expand­ing impact men­tal health prob­lems have on the workplace.

Released: Feb­ru­ary 13, 2013

CCOHS pro­duces FREE monthly pod­casts designed to keep you cur­rent with infor­ma­tion, tips and insights into the health, safety and well-being of work­ing Cana­di­ans.
http://www.ccohs.ca/products/podcasts/
————————————————————————————

How can we help?

About Home­wood

For more than 129 years, Home­wood has been a cor­ner­stone of Cana­dian addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment. We save lives. We have helped thou­sands of Cana­di­ans for decades to cope with the dev­as­tat­ing effects of men­tal ill­ness and addic­tion. Founded in 1883, we are renowned for the qual­ity of our treat­ment, our med­ical integrity, and the breadth and depth of our inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team.

Home­wood is part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion based in Kitch­ener, Ontario, that incor­po­rates three other entities:

Home­wood Human Solu­tions (www.homewoodhumansolutions.com)

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre (www.homewood.org)

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (www.homewood.org/disability-treatment-program)

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Schlegel Vil­lages (www.schlegelvillages.com)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

Heart health at work podcast

February 19, 2013 By

Free Pod­cast: Heart Health at Work

Heart dis­ease and stroke are two of the three lead­ing causes of death in Canada. Matthew Mayer, Senior Spe­cial­ist, Mis­sion Infor­ma­tion, from the Heart and Stroke Foun­da­tion of Canada, dis­cusses the causes and effects of car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease– con­di­tions that dis­rupt the func­tion or mechan­ics of the heart and brain. He explains how to iden­tify and respond to emer­gency events in the work­places, and what employ­ers can do to address the issue.

Released: Feb­ru­ary 13, 2013

CCOHS pro­duces FREE monthly pod­casts designed to keep you cur­rent with infor­ma­tion, tips and insights into the health, safety and well-being of work­ing Cana­di­ans.
http://www.ccohs.ca/products/podcasts/
————————————————————————————

How can we help?

About Home­wood

For more than 129 years, Home­wood has been a cor­ner­stone of Cana­dian addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment. We save lives. We have helped thou­sands of Cana­di­ans for decades to cope with the dev­as­tat­ing effects of men­tal ill­ness and addic­tion. Founded in 1883, we are renowned for the qual­ity of our treat­ment, our med­ical integrity, and the breadth and depth of our inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team.

Home­wood is part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion based in Kitch­ener, Ontario, that incor­po­rates three other entities:

Home­wood Human Solu­tions (www.homewoodhumansolutions.com)

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre (www.homewood.org)

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (www.homewood.org/disability-treatment-program)

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Schlegel Vil­lages (www.schlegelvillages.com)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

We’re offering our expertise at Canada Pension and Benefits Institute event February 12

February 9, 2013 By

Home­wood Human Solu­tions’ Dr. Anne Malain VP of Client Ser­vices is a sub­ject mat­ter expert at Cana­dian Pen­sion and Ben­e­fits Insti­tute’ “Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Safety in the Work­place” event, tak­ing place at the Toronto Board of Trade Cen­tre Feb 12 (Bel­l­Let­sTalk! day). Great tim­ing; great info!

The event dis­cusses a vari­ety of per­ti­nent issues relat­ing to the new Psy­cho­log­i­cal Health and Safety Stan­dard we have been blog­ging about since its final release last month, including:

  • Employer spon­sored health ben­e­fits and employe pro­grams in the new standard.
  • Trends in law refer­ring to work­place men­tal health and Duty to Accommodate.
  • ROI from a well­ness per­spec­tive and a busi­ness case for improv­ing work­place men­tal health.

Don’t miss out, it’s upcom­ing fast.. on Tues­day! Reg­is­ter and more infor­ma­tion here: http://bit.ly/XvnUkc

 
 
 
Like us on facebook.com/homewoodhumansolutions

Fol­low @HomewoodHS on Twitter

Link with linkedin.com/companies/homewood-human-solutions

Watch us on our Home­woodHS YouTube channel

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

Bell Lets Talk! on February 12: What is addiction?

February 4, 2013 By

Each day from now until Bel­l­Let­sTalk Men­tal Health Day (Feb­ru­ary 12) we will be fea­tur­ing an arti­cle from our expert col­leagues at Home­wood Health Cen­tre (our sis­ter orga­ni­za­tion in Guelph, Ontario: a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act, and Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treatment).

Today (Feb. 4) our focus is on Addic­tions. Specifically:

What is addiction?

Addic­tion is some­times referred to as “depen­dence” or an inabil­ity to give up a par­tic­u­lar behav­iour or sub­stance with­out incur­ring adverse effects such as with­drawal symp­toms or psy­cho­log­i­cal prob­lems. Addic­tions can often result in social and inter­per­sonal prob­lems, legal trou­bles and phys­i­cally haz­ardous sit­u­a­tions. Peo­ple can develop addic­tions not only to drugs and alco­hol, but also to behav­iours such as gam­bling. There are two aspects that all addic­tions have in com­mon. The addic­tive behav­iour is mal­adap­tive and under­mines a person’s abil­ity to over­come prob­lems and adapt to situations.

The behav­iour is per­sis­tent; a per­son will con­tinue to engage in the addic­tive behav­iour despite the neg­a­tive con­se­quences and prob­lems it may cause.

Addic­tion is a pri­mary dis­ease – one aris­ing spon­ta­neously and not asso­ci­ated with or caused by a pre­vi­ous dis­ease or injury.  It is a chronic relaps­ing con­di­tion char­ac­ter­ized by com­pul­sive drug-seeking or abuse and long-lasting chem­i­cal changes in the brain.

There is no one, sin­gle cause of addic­tion. Fac­tors such as genet­ics, envi­ron­ment, men­tal health issues and the way drugs inter­act with the brain, can all cause peo­ple to become addicted. It is esti­mated that more than half of peo­ple with sub­stance use dis­or­ders also expe­ri­ence men­tal health prob­lems such as anx­i­ety or depression.

Addic­tion signs and symptoms 

The addicted per­son expe­ri­ences a crav­ing for a chem­i­cal or com­pul­sive behav­iour. The per­son will use these chem­i­cals or com­pul­sive behav­iours to relieve stress, reduce inhi­bi­tions and to express their feel­ings. As the body builds a tol­er­ance to these sub­stances and behav­iours, the addicted per­son will require more of them in order to expe­ri­ence the “high” he or she is look­ing for.  The per­son will spend a sig­nif­i­cant amount of time con­ceal­ing, plan­ning, or recov­er­ing from their use.

 Drug or alco­hol abuse phys­i­cal warn­ing signs

  • blood­shot eyes or abnormal-sized pupils
  • changes in appetite or sleep pat­terns – sud­den weight loss or weight gain
  • dete­ri­o­ra­tion of phys­i­cal appear­ance and per­sonal groom­ing habits
  • unusual smells on breath, body, or clothing
  • tremors, slurred speech, or impaired co-ordination

Drug or alco­hol abuse behav­ioural signs

  • a drop in atten­dance and per­for­mance at work or school
  • unex­plained need for money or finan­cial prob­lems – may bor­row or steal to get money
  • engag­ing in secre­tive or sus­pi­cious behaviors
  • sud­den change in friends, favourite hang­outs, and hobbies
  • fre­quently get­ting into trou­ble (fights, acci­dents, ille­gal activities)

Drug or alco­hol abuse psy­cho­log­i­cal warn­ing signs

  • unex­plained change in per­son­al­ity or attitude
  • sud­den mood swings, irri­tabil­ity, or angry outbursts
  • peri­ods of unusual hyper­ac­tiv­ity, agi­ta­tion, or giddiness
  • lack of moti­va­tion; appears lethar­gic or “spaced out”
  • appears fear­ful, anx­ious, or para­noid, with no reason

How to help some­one who is strug­gling with addiction

The stigma sur­round­ing addic­tion often causes peo­ple to feel guilty and shame­ful, which some­times results in peo­ple hid­ing their prob­lem.  If you know some­one strug­gling with addic­tion, it is impor­tant to:

  • sup­port their recov­ery and main­tain open com­mu­ni­ca­tion with them about what they are going through
  • avoid using words such as “addict’, “alco­holic” or “junkie”
  • always remem­ber to put the per­son ahead of the prob­lem.  (Peo­ple are more likely to stay in treat­ment if they have a pos­i­tive sup­port net­work of rel­a­tives and friends.)
  • take care of your own phys­i­cal and men­tal health (Under­stand­ing the prob­lem and the impact that addic­tion has on an indi­vid­ual and his or her fam­ily can help every­one cope. Many treat­ment cen­tres offer fam­ily pro­grams or can pro­vide you with a list of avail­able com­mu­nity resources.)

What is withdrawal?

Drugs and alco­hol are brain depres­sants.  They sup­press the brain’s pro­duc­tion of neu­ro­trans­mit­ters such as nora­dren­a­line. When some­one stops using the addic­tive sub­stance, the brain responds by pro­duc­ing a surge of adren­a­line that causes with­drawal symptoms.

Phys­i­cal with­drawal symp­toms may include: sweat­ing, rac­ing heart, mus­cle ten­sion, tight­ness in the chest, dif­fi­culty breath­ing, tremors, nau­sea, vom­it­ing and diarrhea.

Seri­ous symp­toms are: grand mal seizure, heart attacks, strokes, hal­lu­ci­na­tions and delir­ium tremens.

Emo­tional with­drawal symp­toms that may occur are: anx­i­ety, rest­less­ness, insom­nia, headaches, depres­sion and social isolation.

Some peo­ple may require help man­ag­ing with­drawal symp­toms.  An addicted indi­vid­ual may seek med­ical super­vi­sion at a detox cen­tre or a local emer­gency depart­ment when he or she is ready to stop using the addic­tive substance(s).  To find detox­i­fi­ca­tion resources in Ontario, visit www.dart.on.ca.

Treat­ing addiction

Research has shown that a com­bi­na­tion of behav­ioural ther­apy and med­ica­tion is the best way to ensure suc­cess in treat­ing addic­tions.  Treat­ment is avail­able in a vari­ety of ther­a­peu­tic settings:

  • Many treat­ment cen­tres offer res­i­den­tial (in-patient) pro­grams.  These pro­grams often require absti­nence from all non-prescribed sub­stances.  After­care is often pro­vided for peo­ple who have com­pleted a treat­ment pro­gram and are striv­ing to avoid relapse to their addiction.
  • Out-patient pro­grams and com­mu­nity ser­vices are avail­able and often treat peo­ple who con­tinue to use substances.
  • Recov­ery homes and ther­a­peu­tic com­mu­ni­ties allow patients to live in sup­port­ive hous­ing while recov­er­ing from addic­tion.  Ther­a­peu­tic com­mu­ni­ties often expect com­plete absti­nence from all non-prescribed substances.

Speak with your doc­tor if you need infor­ma­tion about the addic­tion treat­ment options avail­able to you.  Your doc­tor can pro­vide you with addic­tion infor­ma­tion and, if nec­es­sary, can pro­vide you with a refer­ral to a par­tic­u­lar treat­ment program.

While wait­ing for treat­ment, it is impor­tant to seek sup­port from with­drawal man­age­ment ser­vices and self-help meet­ings. Some facil­i­ties may pro­vide ori­en­ta­tion groups that you or your fam­ily can attend while wait­ing for treat­ment.  It may also be nec­es­sary to find coun­selling out­side of the addic­tion treat­ment system.

More infor­ma­tion

For assess­ment and treat­ment ser­vices in your com­mu­nity, visit your local com­mu­nity men­tal health clinic or talk to your fam­ily doc­tor.  In Ontario, visit www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/contact/chc/chc_mn.html

Infor­ma­tion, coun­selling and sup­port may be avail­able through an Employee Assis­tance Pro­gram (EAP) at your workplace.

In Ontario, con­tact the Drug and Alco­hol Reg­istry of Treat­ment (DART) at 1–800-565‑8603 or visit www.dart.on.ca.

For self-help groups and infor­ma­tion about the 12-Step Approach to Addic­tions, visit:

 

————————————————————————————

How can we help?

About Home­wood

For more than 129 years, Home­wood has been a cor­ner­stone of Cana­dian addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment. We save lives. We have helped thou­sands of Cana­di­ans for decades to cope with the dev­as­tat­ing effects of men­tal ill­ness and addic­tion. Founded in 1883, we are renowned for the qual­ity of our treat­ment, our med­ical integrity, and the breadth and depth of our inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team.

Home­wood is part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion based in Kitch­ener, Ontario, that incor­po­rates three other entities:

Home­wood Human Solu­tions (www.homewoodhumansolutions.com)

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre (www.homewood.org)

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (www.homewood.org/disability-treatment-program)

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Schlegel Vil­lages (www.schlegelvillages.com)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

About Homewood

February 3, 2013 By

————————————————————————————

How can we help?

About Home­wood

For more than 129 years, Home­wood has been a cor­ner­stone of Cana­dian addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment. We save lives. We have helped thou­sands of Cana­di­ans for decades to cope with the dev­as­tat­ing effects of men­tal ill­ness and addic­tion. Founded in 1883, we are renowned for the qual­ity of our treat­ment, our med­ical integrity, and the breadth and depth of our inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team.

Home­wood is part of Schlegel Health Care, a family-owned health care orga­ni­za­tion based in Kitch­ener, Ontario, that incor­po­rates three other entities:

Home­wood Human Solu­tions (www.homewoodhumansolutions.com)

Home­wood Human Solu­tions™ offers a one-of-a-kind approach to the mar­ket: the high­est qual­ity of clin­i­cal sup­port and inter­ven­tion avail­able within the EFAP indus­try, and an unmatched con­tin­uum of ser­vices — span­ning health pro­mo­tion, men­tal health and addic­tions treat­ment, and prevention-focused work-life coun­selling services.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre (www.homewood.org)

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is Canada’s unsur­passed med­ical leader in addic­tion and men­tal health treat­ment, pro­vid­ing highly spe­cial­ized psy­chi­atric ser­vices to all Cana­di­ans. We are a 312-bed, Sched­ule 1 facil­ity under the Ontario Men­tal Health Act. We oper­ate nine pro­grams treat­ing a range of men­tal health and addic­tion issues.

Home­wood Health Cen­tre is located in Guelph, Ontario.

Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (www.homewood.org/disability-treatment-program)

Effec­tive dis­abil­ity man­age­ment for men­tal ill­ness must go beyond “man­ag­ing” dis­abil­ity to include both inpa­tient and out­pa­tient treat­ment. Treat­ment goals must incor­po­rate strate­gies for suc­cess­ful work rein­te­gra­tion to min­i­mize recur­rence and relapse.

The Home­wood Dis­abil­ity Treat­ment Pro­gram (HDTP) com­bines the ser­vices avail­able through the Home­wood Health Cen­tre – a nation­ally rec­og­nized men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment cen­tre with the best national net­work of skilled men­tal health and addic­tion treat­ment pro­fes­sion­als through Home­wood Human Solu­tionsTM.

Schlegel Vil­lages (www.schlegelvillages.com)

Schlegel Vil­lages are designed, built and man­aged by the Schlegel fam­ily of Kitch­ener, Ontario. Our motto: “It Takes a Vil­lage to Care” lives on.

Cana­dian owned and oper­ated, our Vil­lages ben­e­fit from the Schlegel fam­ily hav­ing over 40 years of direct expe­ri­ence co-owning, man­ag­ing and oper­at­ing Long Term Care and Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties in Ontario. There are eleven Schlegel Vil­lages hous­ing approx­i­mately 2500 seniors. Each Vil­lage has a Long Term Care com­po­nent, with Full Ser­vice Retire­ment Liv­ing, Assisted Care, Mem­ory Care and Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing options being added in stages. The first Schlegel Vil­lage opened in 1998 in Guelph.

Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

 

What is your definition of “psychological health”? The scholars say…

January 24, 2013 By

When speak­ing of “psy­cho­log­i­cal health” in var­i­ous con­texts (e.g. work­places, age­ing, fam­ily life) def­i­n­i­tions vary, and are some­times notably absent. What are the schol­ars say­ing in the lat­est research (note: many con­cepts are not “work­place psy­cho­log­i­cal health” spe­cific, but rather in the con­text of gen­eral men­tal health).

The devel­op­ment of a con­cept of psy­cho­log­i­cal well-being (abstract)

The results of the present study indi­cate that the most valid and reli­able fac­to­r­ial com­po­nents of psy­cho­log­i­cal well-being are self regard,interpersonal rela­tion­ship, inde­pen­dence, problem-solving, assertiveness,reality test­ing, stress tol­er­ance, self-actualization and hap­pi­ness; social respon­si­bil­ity and flex­i­bil­ity emerged as ques­tion­able com­po­nents of the a pos­te­ri­ori con­cept. The inven­tory which was designed to study the con­cept was suc­cess­ful in sig­nif­i­cantly dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing var­i­ous lev­els of psy­cho­log­i­cal health.

http://eprints.ru.ac.za/1994/

The asso­ci­a­tion of cop­ing to phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal health out­comes: A meta-analytic review* (abstract)

We per­formed a series of meta-analyses exam­in­ing the asso­ci­a­tions between cop­ing and health-related out­comes in non­clin­i­cal adult sam­ples. Results revealed that problem-focused cop­ing was pos­i­tively cor­re­lated with over­all health out­comes, whereas con­fron­tive cop­ing, dis­tanc­ing, self-control, seek­ing social sup­port, accept­ing respon­si­bil­ity, avoid­ance, and wish­ful think­ing were each neg­a­tively cor­re­lated with over­all health out­comes. Nei­ther plan­ful prob­lem solv­ing nor pos­i­tive reap­praisal was sig­nif­i­cantly asso­ci­ated with over­all health out­comes in our analy­ses. How­ever, type of health out­come (i.e., phys­i­cal vs. psy­cho­log­i­cal) and sit­u­a­tional char­ac­ter­is­tics (i.e., stres­sor type, con­trol­la­bil­ity, and dura­tion) mod­er­ated many of the over­all associations.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1020641400589?LI=true

Hap­pi­ness is every­thing, or is it? Explo­rations on the mean­ing of psy­cho­log­i­cal well-being (abstract)

Three hun­dred and twenty-one men and women, divided among young, middle-aged, and older adults, rated them­selves on these mea­sures along with six instru­ments promi­nent in ear­lier stud­ies (i.e., affect bal­ance, life sat­is­fac­tion, self-esteem, morale, locus of con­trol, depres­sion). Results revealed that pos­i­tive rela­tions with oth­ers, auton­omy, pur­pose in life, and per­sonal growth were not strongly tied to prior assess­ment indexes, thereby sup­port­ing the claim that key aspects of pos­i­tive func­tion­ing have not been rep­re­sented in the empir­i­cal arena. Fur­ther­more, age pro­files revealed a more dif­fer­en­ti­ated pat­tern of well-being than is evi­dent in prior research.

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/57/6/1069/

Men­tal health and men­tal ill­ness: Some prob­lems of def­i­n­i­tion and con­cept for­ma­tion (Jour­nal arti­cle preview)

“there is hardly a term in cur­rent psy­cho­log­i­cal thought as vague, elu­sive, and ambigu­ous as the term ‘men­tal health’”

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/186153?uid=3739400&uid=2&uid=3737720&uid=4&sid=21101702393447

Con­cep­tual analy­sis and mea­sure­ment of the con­struct of ego-resiliency (abstract)

This inves­ti­ga­tion explored the mean­ing, mea­sure­ment, and valid­ity of the ego-resiliency con­struct (ER)…Components of ER obtained through exploratory fac­tor analy­ses (con­fi­dent opti­mism, pro­duc­tive and autonomous activ­ity, inter­per­sonal warmth and insight, and skilled expres­sive­ness) formed a uni­tary con­struct and mir­rored the rela­tions found between ER and other trait domains. Across sam­ples, there were strong rela­tions between ER and effec­tive func­tion­ing in diverse areas of life. ER is dis­cussed in rela­tion to gen­er­ally accepted cri­te­ria of adjust­ment and effec­tive functioning.

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/70/5/1067/

*Note: Meta-analysis. From your blog author and social media direc­tor Scott Wal­lace, PhD, RPsych

In research, a meta-analysis refers to con­trast­ing and com­bin­ing the results from dif­fer­ent stud­ies, in the hope of iden­ti­fy­ing an “effect size” and pat­terns among the study results. Stud­ies of the same con­cept (e.g. ‘what is psy­cho­log­i­cal health’, ‘does CBT help in long-term treat­ment of depres­sion’) inevitably involves dif­fer­ent con­di­tions and assump­tions. For exam­ple: dif­fer­ent pop­u­la­tions, dif­fer­ent mea­sures, dif­fer­ences in a treat­ment depend­ing on the indi­vid­ual provider, etc.

Rather than rely­ing on one study for a con­clu­sion, a meta-analytic review com­pares and con­trasts many stud­ies in the hope of iden­ti­fy­ing com­mon pat­terns and an over­all “effect size” (i.e. con­fi­dence in the conclusion).

Wher­ever pos­si­ble, look for meta-analyses of con­cepts you are inter­ested in. This way, you don’t run the risk of depend­ing too much on a con­clu­sion from a sin­gle source, or even a few. And, instead, have a more bal­anced (if some­times con­ser­v­a­tive) conclusion.

 

Com­ments? Thoughts or resources to share?

.
 

NOTE: The con­tent and opin­ions offered in Healthy Work­places blog posts do not nec­es­sar­ily reflect the for­mal stance of Home­wood Human Solu­tions, unless oth­er­wise iden­ti­fied. We bring this infor­ma­tion for­ward in the inter­ests of openly shar­ing val­ued infor­ma­tion in this time of fast-growing online con­ver­sa­tions and knowledge.

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