Brief, recurrent, reactive, or situational depression is a common and costly comorbidity that affects chronically ill patients and their family members. This article describes a program that teaches those individuals how to monitor and cope with symptoms of depression by writing daily in a journal. Twenty patients and family members attended teaching sessions at which videotaped scenes of other patients managing symptoms of depression were shown. After viewing the six scenes, participants wrote about their reactions to each scene and listed the emotions they had experienced that were similar to those shown in the tape. They were then asked to record daily for 4 months their emotions and reactions to situations and to also daily self-rate their levels of energy. They were also provided with a list of recommended activities in which to engage when they were depressed. Two psychiatric nurses evaluated the writings and concluded that the program was influential in helping patients and families overcome many emotionally draining reactions to adverse circumstances.
This article describes a peer preceptor program that trains patients who have experienced limb preservation surgeries and managed long-term rehabilitative therapy to support and teach newly diagnosed patients through their rehabilitation. This preceptor program was designed to complement the professional counseling and support that rehabilitation staff provide to patients and their families. Training includes communication techniques, practice sessions using videotaped scenes of patients and their families, as well as role-playing. Experienced patients who became preceptors as a result of this program were orthopedic oncology patients who had completed limb preservation surgery, chemotherapy, grafting, and physical therapies. After their training, preceptors exhibited improved communication skills in terms of empathy, listening, and voice expressions. Initiatives designed to make the preceptor program self-sustaining by having staff nurses manage the training still have to be tested.
Five Johnson and Johnson fellows validated the lack of communication regarding students with mental/behavioral health issues and took a leadership position within their school district to address the problem. An open-ended survey revealed inconsistent and fragmented support given to students with mental/behavioral health concerns. A multidisciplinary task force was formed consisting of stakeholders including district and nondistrict community members. The procedure for district staff to address students' behavioral/mental health concerns was adapted by representatives from all stakeholders and was distributed district wide and uploaded to the district's staff website for general access. Training of district employees in Youth Mental Health First Aid has provided the foundation for communicating and implementing a standardized approach for identifying, responding, and referring students with mental/behavioral health concerns. Open dialog, better communication and understanding of disciplines, and more initiatives aimed at improving the mental health of all students has resulted from the collaboration started with this initiative.
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