The Impact Of Treatment Interventions On Mental Illness Stigma

The impact of treatment interventions on mental illness stigma
Name:
Course:
Instructor:
Institution:
Date of Submission:
Evidence-Based Intervention
Mental illness stigma is one of the greatest barriers to the improvement of lives of individuals and families of those who suffer from mental disorder. This problem has been noted to carry devastating consequences such as poor mental health seeking behavior, problem in finding employment and housing, withdrawal from social activities, and an overall poor quality of life with those who suffer from mental illness. However, through the review of literature research studies the anti-stigma programs focused on public awareness through educational interventions were effective in reducing mental illness stigma.
These interventions were also found to improve help-seeking behavior among mentally ill persons and increased knowledge to the about general public about the disorder. Programs such as Open the Doors, adopted by several countries including the U.S, is an example of the educational intervention that have been found to be effective in reducing mental illness stigma globally. In this section of the paper, discussion will focus on the proposed educational intervention targeting public awareness implemented by the PMHNP to help reduce mental illness stigma in a local community church.
The educational intervention creates public awareness on the mental illness by targeting members in the local areas that are heavily populated and also in multi-racial church in Riverside California. On the theory of Community Empowerment three different phases are involved.
This educational intervention targeting public awareness of mental illness of the members in the local, heavily populated, multi-racial church here in Riverside California, will compose of three different phases based on the Theory of Community Empowerment. These phases will include involvement, reciprocal health and lay-worker, and (Liehr, & Smith, 2003). This local church community was selected for anti-stigma educational intervention for the following reasons: the members consisted of population of all ages, and they are from all works of life including teachers, students, other health professionals, business owners, employers, landlords, policy makers, community leaders, as well as general members of the population.
According to a research study by Rosen et al.(2008)reviewed above, the impact of lack of knowledge about mental illness has led to high degree of secrecy of the illness among members in religious organizations and results in barrier to early help-seeking from mental health professionals. Hence, as seen in the research study Griffiths et al. (2014), tailoring an educational intervention towards this particular church community would increase knowledge about the disorder, as well as improving attitudes of members of this church community toward individuals and families with mental illness.
Planning is the pre-phase of intervention which suggest that the APN assigns a specific name to the project. The Each-One-Reach-Many mental illness awareness was the name adopted for this project. This is similar to the “Open the Doors” project designed by the WPA in 1996 and adopted by about twenty six countries worldwide (Happell, 2005). The “Open the Doors” project is an anti-stigma educational program aimed at reducing mental illness stigma by providing information about mental disorders to the general public, and then sharing the experiences with similar programs to other chapters across the globe (Happell, 2005).
The next step is for the PMHNP to forge an alliance with this local community church pastor which will mark the first visit with the church. The pastor is regarded as the shepherd of the members of the church and it is believed that he is responsible for approving any outside influence. The APN must seek approval from the pastor and then identify some of the individuals from this church community that will be assist the APN regarded as lay-workers. Further, an introduction of self and in depth outline and analysis of this Each-One-Reach-Many mental illness awareness anti-stigma program, shall be provided by the APN to the pastor and subsequently to the entire members of the congregation.
First, the APN must educate the pastor based on the research study about the nature, causes, and treatment options of mental disorders, and recognizing the vital role that religion, specifically Christianity, has on healing of any illness including mental illness. This includes leaving educational materials, contact information, as well as resource information from organization such as pamphlet from National Alliance Mental Illness (NAMI), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA), and Suicide/Crisis Hotlines.
Also, if directed by the pastor, the APN may make contact with the church administrator to discuss the purpose of the Each-one-Reach-Many mental illness awareness anti stigma educational intervention program. The APN shall utilize the skill of therapeutic communication and active listening to engage the pastor and or the church administrator. This phase also ensures the APN receives either a verbal or written permission by the pastor to proceed with the educational intervention discussed.
The APN then identifies and approaches the lay-workers to be involved in the early phase of this intervention. The lay-workers will include the pastor, Sunday school teachers, women leaders, men leaders, and mid-week Bible study teacher. The last step in this phase urges the APN to design a plan of action that includes specific involvements as well as outlining specific evidence-based educational information to be included in order to achieve improvement in public awareness of mental disorders by the members of this community.
The final step of the first phase comprises of the creation of the educational intervention hand-out by the PMHNP for the presentation. This hand-out will include three important components. The first part involves identifying the symptoms and varied nature of mental disorder presentations. For the purpose of this paper, the PMHNP will utilize the research studies by Corrigan et al (2012) in order to decrease the mental illness stigma and increase treatment seeking and the social inclusion. The second component will include the diathesis model of the causes or the path physiology of mental illness as identified by (HYPERLINK "/books/NBK107203/"Monroe and Hadjiyannakis, 2002) the synopsis of psychiatry.
The next component of this hand-out is the research study by Perlick et al. (2011); clearly delineate the evidenced-based treatment options for the different presentations of mental disorders. Further, this last component will highlight the evidence-based research studies on the pivotal part that religion and spirituality plays on healing of physical and mental disorders. Finally, this last component of the hand-out will include providing various resources and relevant education for individuals suffering from mental illness and their families.
The second phase is the lay-worker phase which addresses the steps that will be implemented by the APN and it is regarded as community participation or involvement phase of the Theory of Community Empowerment. The APN will seek to engage the community by engaging the members in the actual education of evidence-based information about mental illness through active support from the lay-workers, congregational participation with Pre/Post survey, and holding a question and answer session with the group session.
The APN will start this phase with a pre-test. This pre-test will include a five question survey to gather prior knowledge and opinion about mental illnesses. Specific question in the survey are: 1) what is your opinion about the cause of mental health disorder, 2) do you believe t...