Research on the effectiveness of short-term education programs in changing societal attitudes about mental illness has been mixed. Education efforts seem to be mediated by characteristics of the program participants. This study determines whether the effects of a specially prepared, semester-long course on severe mental illness are mediated by pre-education knowledge about and contact with severe mental illness. Eighty-three participants who were enrolled in either a course on severe mental illness or general psychology completed the Opinions about Mental Illness Questionnaire before beginning the course and at completion. Research participants also completed a pre-and posttest of knowledge about mental illness and a pretest on their contact with people who have severe mental illness. The education program had positive effects on some attitudes about mental illness. Interestingly, the effects of education group interacted with pre-education knowledge and contact and varied depending on attitude. Participants with more pre-education knowledge and contact were less likely to endorse benevolence attitudes after completing the education program. Participants with more intimate contact showed less improvement in attitudes about social restrictiveness. Implications of these augmentation and ceiling effects are discussed.

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To determine the correlates of burnout, 47 employees of a state psychiatric hospital completed measures of burnout, collegia! support, prolonged anxiety, physical health, and job attitude. Results showed that burnout was associated positively with anxiety, frequency of illness, and contrary job attitudes, and correlated negatively with level of satisfaction with the collegial support network. Partial correlations showed that satisfaction with support systems diminished the effects of burnout on frequency of illness and job attitudes. Tests for divergent validity showed that these findings were specific to burnout and not other measures of job satisfaction or fulfillment. The results suggest that facilitating staff satisfaction with colleagues may reduce burnout and some of its deleterious effects.

Previous research has shown that burnout in staE members at psychiatric hospitals is significantly associated with state anxiety and collegial support. The directionality of these relationships may be inferred using a cross-lagged panel design. To do this, 35 staffmembers representing various clinical disciplines completed measures of burnout, support, and anxiety twice, eight months apart. Burnout comprised three factors: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment. Findings from one cross-lagged panel suggested that emotional exhaustion c a m state. anxiety. The second panel showed that lack of collegial support caused depersonalization. Understanding causes and effects of burnout for inpatient psychiatric staff may lead to training and resource development that will improve the quality of their work environment.

A necessary first step in the psychosocial treatment of persons with severe mental illness is helping them identify their goals. Unfortunately, goal assessment is often viewed as a categorical process in which individuals list needs for which they require services. Motivational interviews provide a more sophisticated approach in which persons specify the costs and benefits to each of the needs in the list. Benefits define the reasons why a person should pursue a goal; costs define barriers to achieving that goal. The basic mechanisms for understanding and implementing motivational interviews are summarized. Ways to circumvent barriers to motivational interviews are also discussed.