News by Subject Social & Behavior

It's incumbent upon counselors to initiate or respond to clients' concerns about racial, ethnic, and cultural issues, but guidelines lack specific instructions. An article published in the Journal of Counseling & Development provides counselors with strategies for broaching and discussing topics of race, ethnicity, and culture with clients.

Efforts to contain the novel coronavirus have caused lockdowns and school closures around the world. These efforts and policies have unfortunately cut off many children from valuable resources such as the opportunity for exercise, access to clean water and food, learning, and socialization. Therefore, the effects on mental health and behavior may be found not just in adults but children.

A new paper describes how a process called "designing for value" was used to re-imagine the referral process of patients from primary care doctors to psychiatrists in a health system anchored by a major academic medical center.

Latinx young adults who experience heart-focused anxiety could be at greater risk for mental health disorders. New research indicates that heart-focused anxiety among that group is a statistically significant predictor for general depression and overall anxiety.

The common skin disease atopic eczema (AE) impacts heavily on the life quality and general health of sufferers. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now evaluated its treatment with internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy (iCBT). The study suggests that patients feel better after iCBT compared with a control group who received only traditional treatment. The results, which are published in JAMA Dermatology, might eventually make important care available to a large patient group.

New research from BYU published in PLOS Medicine found that providing medical patients with social support leads to an increased chance of survival and elongation of life. Such findings come at a critical time as doctors and healthcare professionals seek new ways to improve care and decrease mortality.

A study led by Willoughby Britton, an associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown, shows the importance of defining and measuring the adverse effects of mindfulness.

Researchers analysed data on 740 children who took up one-to-one counselling. The research, published in European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, used data from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) completed by teachers and parents. One year later, this data showed that the children who spoke to counsellors had considerably better mental health than a comparative group of children who had poor mental health yet had not seen a counsellor.

According to a new study, Connecticut's MAT programs have higher-than-average patient retention rates - more people who enter Connecticut's programs stay in the program to completion. But the study also found that younger patients and patients who reported cocaine or crack use in addition to opioid dependence had a harder time sticking with the MAT treatment program.

A team of Welsh academics has developed a new method of supporting health professionals to make clinical decisions about people who may be at risk of taking their own lives.