American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) populations contend with disproportionately high rates of suicide. The study of protective factors is essential for highlighting resilience and formulating potential interventions for suicide. We systematically review factors that are posited to protect against suicide attempts for AIAN peoples. Seventeen (12 journal articles, five theses/dissertations) articles met inclusion criteria. Results indicate that protective factors are typically situated at one of four levels of analysis: individual (e.g., self-esteem), family (e.g., parent caring), community (e.g., positive adult relationships), and cultural (e.g., cultural spiritual orientation). Notably, there were trends in protective factors across age, sex, and geographic region. Based on these findings, we propose recommendations for moving the field forward in future identification of protective factors as a means of AIAN suicide prevention.
Rates of homelessness are worsening in the United States, with a third of individuals experiencing homelessness being families with children. These families face many challenges, including limited social supports, insufficient access to services, and mental health concerns. These challenges inform a nuanced worldview, leading parents experiencing homelessness to understand their child's school life in unique ways. The purpose of this study is to explore how parents experiencing homelessness understand their children's participation in Head Start and publicly funded 4 K programs. We utilized semi-structured interviews with parents of 4 K students and applied an iterative approach for analysis to identify emergent themes and concepts. Results suggest families enter homelessness through several avenues and struggle with many aspects of homelessness, including stigma directed at parents and children. Parents identified many strengths in their children's school programs, including education and support from faculty, as well as areas for growth, such as more comprehensive transportation and meal services. Overall, these results suggest families experiencing homelessness encounter many barriers to finding stable housing. Additionally, parents of children experiencing homelessness value their child's education and access to resources in schools while still fearing the potential for their child to experience stigmatization and discrimination in schools.
Objectives:
American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIANs) experience significant disparities in their prevalence of suicidal ideation, attempts, and deaths when compared to all other racial/ethnic groups in the United States. In this systematic review (SR), we aim to examine the methodologies employed in AIAN suicide research during the past decade to highlight successful methodological practices and provide suggestions for improving future research.
Method:
The authors followed guidance by Siddaway et al. (2019) for conducting SRs. The databases PsycINFO, Ovid Medline, The Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Education Resources Information Center, Bibliography of Native North Americans, Sociological Abstracts, and Academic Search Premier were searched for scientific articles published between 2010 and June 5, 2020 that specifically focused on AIAN suicide. The search yielded 937 citations; 240 full-text articles were screened for inclusion, and 72 articles were included in this review.
Results:
Findings revealed significant heterogeneity among methodologies employed in the corpus, making it difficult to draw robust conclusions about AIAN suicide. Notably, research partnerships that were initiated by an AIAN Tribal Nation in collaboration with a research team yielded meaningful contributions and positive outcomes as compared to traditional community-based participatory research approaches. Finally, several critical gaps in the literature emerged including a lack of data on sexual and gender minority AIANs, urban, and multiracial AIANs.
Conclusions: Based on these findings, we propose the following recommendations: (a) standardize the assessment of suicide; (b) increase partnerships between Tribal Nations and researchers; and (c) pursue research centering specific high-risk populations (e.g., urban, sexual and gender minority, and multiracial AIANs).
College students experience a number of stressors, such as adjustment to a new environment, postgraduation planning, and the balancing of changing roles and responsibilities. These stressors may contribute to increased rates of psychological distress that have implications for their educational and career development. The purpose of this study was to extend understanding of the nature of the relationships among psychological distress, self‐esteem, and career decision self‐efficacy (CDSE) beliefs. Results from 292 undergraduate students demonstrated support for the proposed hypotheses. Psychological distress negatively related to self‐esteem and to CDSE. Self‐esteem was positively related to, yet distinct from, CDSE, and both self‐esteem and psychological distress contributed unique variance to the prediction of CDSE. Results highlight the importance of attending to student psychological distress in the provision of career counseling services. Future research that centralizes mental health is needed to better understand relationships among career development processes over time and within diverse student populations.
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