Search results

Mental well-being is associated with positive outcomes throughout the life course. This study aims to examine interventions delivered by allied health professionals (AHPs) to alleviate community stressors adversely impacting public mental health and well-being.

Review inclusion criteria comprised experimental and qualitative process evaluations of public mental health interventions delivered by AHPs. Electronic searches in Cinahl, Embase, Medline, PsycINFO and the Cochrane Library, were combined with grey literature searches of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence public health guidance. A narrative synthesis and the Effective Public Health Practice Project appraisal tool were used to evaluate the evidence.

A total of 45-articles were included in the review describing AHP-delivered interventions addressing social disadvantage, trauma, bullying, loneliness, work-related stress, transitional stress, intersectionality, pain and bereavement. No articles were identified evaluating interventions delivered by operating department practitioners or orthoptists. A conceptual map was developed summarising the stressors, and a typology of public mental health interventions defined including: place-based interventions, discrete/one-off interventions, multi-component lifestyle and social connector interventions and interventions targeting groups at risk of mental health conditions.

Many mental health conditions begin in childhood, and a strength of the review is the life course perspective. A further strength is compiling a compendium of public mental health outcome measures used by AHPs to inform future research. The authors excluded many articles focussed on clinical interventions/populations, which did not meet review inclusion criteria. While playing a key role in delivering public mental health interventions, clinical psychologists are not defined as AHPs and were excluded from the review, and this may be construed a limitation. Given heterogeneity of study designs and interventions evaluated numerical analyses of pooled findings was not appropriate.

The review highlights the breadth of community stressors on which AHPs can intervene and contribute in public mental health contexts, stressors which correspond to those identified in UK Government guidance as currently important and relevant to address. The findings can inform developing community public mental health pathways that align with the UK National Health Service (NHS) Long Term Plan, on prevention and early intervention to protect community mental health and well-being. Further can inform the NHS strategic direction for AHPs including informing ways of increasing utilisation of core AHP skills to optimise contributions in public mental health agendas.

It is surprising there were not more AHP delivered evaluations of interventions for other stressors important to address in public mental health settings, for example gambling, domestic violence or that used digital technology, and these are areas for future research. Future research should identify the most active/effective dimensions of multi-component interventions which could be informed by frameworks to guide complex intervention development. The relative paucity of research identified, highlights the predominant focus of research to date on interventions for clinical mental health conditions and populations. The lack of preventative approaches is evident, and an important area for future research to align with UK health and social care priorities.

The review highlights AHP-delivered interventions impacting diverse community stressors across the life course. The findings can inform developing public mental health pathways aligned with government health service priorities to protect mental health and well-being, prioritise prevention and early intervention and increase utilisation of AHP skills across public mental health settings.

Clinical staff working in mental health services experience high levels of work-related stress, burnout and poor well-being. Increased levels of stress, burnout, depression and anxiety and poorer mental well-being among health-care workers are associated with more sick days, absenteeism, lower work satisfaction, increased staff turnover and reduced quality of patient care. Virtual reality (VR) relaxation is a technique whereby experiences of pleasant and calming environments are accessed through a head-mounted display to promote relaxation. The purpose of this paper is to describe the design of a study that assesses the feasibility and acceptability of implementing a multi-session VR relaxation intervention amongst mental health professionals, to improve their relaxation levels and mental well-being.

The study follows a pre–post-test design. Mental health staff will be recruited for five weeks of VR relaxation. The authors will measure the feasibility and acceptability of the VR relaxation intervention as primary outcomes, alongside secondary outcomes evaluating the benefits of VR relaxation for mental well-being.

The study aims to recruit 20–25 health-care professionals working in both inpatient and specialist community mental health settings.

Research indicates the potential of VR relaxation as a low-intensity intervention to promote relaxation and reduce stress in the workplace. If VR relaxation is shown to be feasible and acceptable, when delivered across multiple sessions, there would be scope for large-scale work to investigate its effectiveness as an approach to enable health-care professionals to de-stress, relax and optimise their mental well-being. In turn, this may consequently reduce turnover and improve stress-related sick leave across health-care services.

Around 400,000 working days per year are lost in the construction industry due to stress, depression or anxiety, but a large proportion of the industry – those primarily not based “on-site” – is not included in these statistics. Little research has been conducted in this group about their experiences of occupational stress. The authors explored how stress was experienced and managed by construction professionals and its perceived impact on health.

The authors interviewed 32 construction professionals in a British construction company, with varying levels of seniority and years in the industry. Interviews were transcribed, coded and analysed thematically.

Stress was viewed an inevitable and increasing part of the construction industry, exacerbated by recent economic challenges. Participants talked about a culture of stress and overwork but often felt unable to challenge it due to job insecurity. Senior management acknowledged stress was a problem within the industry and something that potentially threatened company productivity. Company-wide initiatives had been implemented to address stress levels (e.g. Mental Health First Aiders), but were criticised for ignoring underlying issues. Informal means of managing stress were identified, such as careful consideration of team dynamics, which allowed employees to form close bonds and using “banter” and camaraderie to relieve stress. However, the persistence of a macho male image meant some participants were reluctant to talk about their feelings at work. Participants described individual coping strategies, such as exercise, but these were hard to prioritise in challenging times.

There is growing recognition that health and well-being must be given greater priority in the construction industry. Industry pressures and competitive practices undermine efforts to improve staff well-being. Action must be taken at senior levels to address this conflict, while building on existing informal mechanisms of support and stress relief.

This study aims to examine the effect of human resource management (HRM) in mitigating negative effects of Lean management and Six Sigma (LM&SS) on employee well-being in health care. The authors subdivide well-being into three components: happiness, trust and health.

This is a cross-sectional, multisite survey study in internal service units of hospitals. Data analyzed using multivariate regression come from a sample of 1,886 survey respondents (42 units, N = 218 supervisors, N = 1,668 employees) in eight Dutch academic hospitals that have implemented LM&SS.

The present study findings show no or weak effects of LM&SS on the happiness and health component of employee well-being. In addition, the authors found a significant but weak direct positive effect (ß = 0.07) of the LM&SS bundle on the trusting relationships component of well-being. Therefore, moderating effects of HRM practices on the relationship between LM&SS and employee well-being seem less relevant because an existing relationship between LM&SS and employee well-being is a prerequisite for moderation (Hayes, 2009). There were unexpected side effects. Inspired by research that discusses direct effects of HRM on employee well-being, the authors tested this relationship and found that HRM has a direct positive effect on trust and happiness of employees in health care. For the health component of well-being, the present results show a weak negative effect of HRM.

This study results in a cautiously optimistic view about LM&SS in health care, provided that it is applied in a targeted manner (to improve the performance of their processes) and that HRM is strategically aligned with the goals of LM&SS to improve employees’ happiness and trusting relationships.

Unique features of the study are the focus on the consequences for employees’ well-being related to LM&SS in health care, the role of HRM in regard to this relationship and the participation of all eight Dutch academic hospitals in this research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how a supervisor’s virtuous leadership as perceived by subordinates influences subordinates’ work-related well-being and to examine the mediating role of trust in the leader and the moderating roles of individual leader virtues and various characteristics of subordinates and organizations.

An online survey was conducted through Prolific among a self-selected sample of 1,237 employees who worked with an immediate supervisor across various industries in primarily the UK and the USA. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.

The empirical results indicate that an immediate supervisor’s virtuous leadership as evaluated by the subordinate positively influences all three considered dimensions of work-related well-being – job satisfaction, work-related affect and work engagement – for a wide variety of employees in different industries and countries. A subordinate’s greater trust in the supervisor fully mediates this positive influence for job satisfaction and work engagement and partially for work-related affect. All five individual core leader virtues – prudence, temperance, justice, courage and humanity – positively influence work-related well-being.

The findings underscore that promoting virtuous leadership is a promising pathway for improved employee well-being, which may ultimately benefit individual and organizational performance.

Despite an age-old interest in leader virtues, the lack of consensus on the defining elements of virtuous leadership has limited the understanding of its consequences. Building on recent advances in the conceptualization and measurement of virtuous leadership and leader character, this paper addresses this void by exploring how virtuous leadership relates to employees’ well-being and trust.

The purpose of this paper is to test whether incorporating a 20-week Kundalini yoga programme into a residential home for children improves well-being outcomes.

This is a mixed methods feasibility study. Feasibility was assessed through recruitment and retention rates as well as participants’ self-report perceptions on social inclusion, mental health and well-being and through semi-structured interviews on the benefits of the study. Mutual recovery entailed that children in care (CIC), youth practitioners and management participated together in the Kundalini yoga sessions.

The study initially enrolled 100 per cent of CIC and 97 per cent (29/30) of eligible staff. Attendance was low with an average rate of four sessions per participant (SD=3.7, range 0-13). All the participants reported that the study was personally meaningful and experienced both individual (e.g. feeling more relaxed) and social benefits (e.g. feeling more open and positive). Pre- and post-yoga questionnaires did not show any significant effects. Low attendance was associated with the challenges faced by the children’s workforce (e.g. high levels of stress, low status, profile and pay) and insufficient consultation and early involvement of stakeholders on the study implementation process.

Because of the chosen research approach (i.e. feasibility study) and low attendance rate, the research results may lack generalisability. Therefore, further research with larger samples including a control or comparison group to pilot similar research questions is mandatory.

This study has generated a number of valuable guiding principles and recommendations that might underpin the development of any future intervention for CIC and staff working in children’s homes.

The concept of togetherness and mutuality within residential spaces is discussed in the paper.

The effects of Kundalini yoga have not been reported before in any peer-review publications. This paper fulfils an identified need (i.e. poor outcomes among CIC and residential staff) and shows how movement and creative practices can support the concept of mutual recovery.

Using a mixed methodology comprising interviews, case file analysis and descriptive statistics, this study aims to examine the experiences of all 43 young people in Wales subject to secure accommodation orders between 1st April 2016 and 31st March 2018.

Children in the UK aged 10–17 years who are deemed to be at a significant level of risk to themselves or others may be subject to a secure accommodation order, leading to time spent in a secure children’s home (SCH) on welfare grounds. Following a rise in the number of children in Wales referred to SCHs for welfare reasons, this paper describes these young people’s journeys into, through and out of SCHs, giving insight into their experiences and highlighting areas for policy and practice improvements.

Findings indicate that improvements in mental health support and placement availability are key in improving the experiences of this particularly vulnerable group of young people throughout their childhood.

Other practical implications of the study’s findings, such as improvements in secure transport arrangements, are also discussed.

While the findings are limited by the reliance on self-report methods and the size of the study, namely, the small number of young people with experience of SCHs who were able to participate, the findings build on the existing knowledge base around children’s residential accommodation and provide new insights into how best to support these children.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused severe challenges to ethnic minorities in the UK. While the experiences of migrants are both complex and varied depending on individuals' social class, race, cultural proximity to the host country and acculturation levels, more in-depth studies are necessary to fully understand how COVID-19 affects specific migrant groups and their health. Taiwanese migrants were selected because they are an understudied group. Also, there were widespread differences in pandemic management between the UK and Taiwan, making this group an ideal case for understanding how their acculturation journey can be disrupted by a crisis.

Qualitative data were collected at two different time points, at the start of the UK pandemic (March/April 2020) and six months on (October/November 2020), to explore migrant coping experiences over time. Theoretically, the authors apply acculturation theory through the lens of coping, while discussing health-consumption practices, as empirical evidence.

Before the outbreak of the pandemic, participants worked hard to achieve high levels of integration in the UK. The pandemic changed this; participants faced unexpected changes in the UK’s sociocultural structures. They were forced to exercise the layered and complex “coping with coping” in a hostile host environment that signalled their new marginalised status. They faced impossible choices, from catching a life-threatening disease to being seen as overly cautious. Such experience, over time, challenged their integration to the host country, resulting in a loss of faith in the UK’s health system, consequently increasing separation from the host culture and society.

It is important to note that the Taiwanese sample recruited through Facebook community groups is biased and has a high level of homogeneity. These participants were well-integrated, middle-class migrants who were highly educated, relatively resourceful and active on social media. More studies are needed to fully understand the impact on well-being and acculturation of migrants from different cultural, contextual and social backgrounds. This being the case, the authors can speculate that migrants with less resource are likely to have found the pandemic experience even more challenging. More studies are needed to fully understand migrant experience from different backgrounds.

Public health policymakers are advised to dedicate more resources to understand migrants' experiences in the host country. In particular, this paper has shown how separation, especially if embraced temporarily, is not necessarily a negative outcome to be corrected with specific policies. It can be strategically adopted by migrants as a way of defending their health and well-being from an increasingly hostile environment. Migrants' home country experience provides vicarious learning opportunities to acquire good practices. Their voices should be encouraged rather than in favour of a surprising orthodox and rather singular approach in the discussion of public health management.

The paper has clear public health policy implications. Firstly, public health policymakers are advised to dedicate more resources to understand migrants' experiences in the host country. Acknowledging migrants' voice is a critical first step to contribute to the development of a fair and inclusive society. Secondly, to retain skilful migrants and avoid a future brain-drain, policymakers are advised to advance existing infrastructure to provide more incentives to support and retain migrant talents in the post-pandemic recovery phase.

This paper reveals how a group of previously well-integrated migrants had to exercise “coping with coping” during the COVID crisis. This experience, over time, challenged their integration to the host country, resulting in a loss of faith in the UK’s health system, consequently increasing separation from the host culture and society. It contributes to the understanding of acculturation by showing how a such crisis can significantly disrupt migrants' acculturation journey, challenging them to re-acculturate and reconsider their identity stance. It shows how separation was indeed a good option for migrants for protecting their well-being from a newly hostile host environment.

This paper aims to identify the well-being outcomes of a social prescribing model set within a secondary mental health service recovery pathway and understand the key characteristics of a social prescribing referral for producing these outcomes.

A qualitative case study of one mental health social prescribing service with three nested case studies of social prescribing providers. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with commissioners, providers and patients (n = 20) and analysed thematically.

Social prescribing makes a positive contribution to emotional, psychological and social well-being for patients of secondary mental health services. A key enabling mechanism of the social prescribing model was the supportive discharge pathway which provided opportunities for sustained engagement in community activities, including participation in peer-to-peer support networks and volunteering.

More in-depth research is required to fully understand when, for whom and in what circumstances social prescribing is effective for patients of secondary mental health services.

A supported social prescribing referral, embedded within a recovery focussed secondary mental health service pathway, offers a valuable accompaniment to traditional approaches. Current social prescribing policy is focussed on increasing the number of link workers in primary care, but this study highlights the importance models embedded within secondary care and of funding VCSE organisations to receive referrals and provide pathways for long-term engagement, enabling positive outcomes to be sustained.

Social prescribing is widely advocated in policy and practice but there are few examples of social prescribing models having been developed in secondary mental health services, and no published academic studies that everybody are aware of.

The voices of children and young people have been largely neglected in discussions of the extent to which the internet takes into account their needs and concerns. This paper aims to highlight young people’s lived experiences of being online.

Results are drawn from the UnBias project’s youth led discussions, “Youth Juries” with young people predominantly aged between 13 and 17 years.

Whilst the young people are able to use their agency online in some circumstances, many often experience feelings of disempowerment and resignation, particularly in relation to the terms and conditions and user agreements that are ubiquitous to digital technologies, social media platforms and other websites.

Although changes are afoot as part of the General Data Protection Regulation (herein the GDPR) to simplify the terms and conditions of online platforms (European Union, 2016), it offers little practical guidance on how it should be implemented to children. The voices and opinions of children and young people are put forward as suggestions for how the “clear communication to data subjects” required by Article 12 of the GDPR in particular should be implemented, for example, recommendations about how terms and conditions can be made more accessible.

Children and young people are an often overlooked demographic of online users. This paper argues for the importance of this group being involved in any changes that may affect them, by putting forward recommendations from the children and young people themselves.