Mental Health Week in Australia - Assignment Example

Activity for Mental Health Week Introduction: This assignment is about a mental health promotion activity designed for the mental health week. MentalHealth Week in Australia is a week-long programme in the period between October 5, 2008 to October 11, 2008. This week aims to activate, educate, and engage people around mental health and related issues through the organisation of a huge variety of events by individuals, professionals, and organisations across the continent. Moreover, this also supports World Mental Health Day on October 10, 2008. Before going into the discussion about the design of this mental health worker’s activity for the mental health week, it would be pertinent to highlight the aim of such activity. The aim of my activity is to promote mental health, prevent mental health disorder, and if there is any sign of mental ill health to intervene early so the prognosis is favourable. For the reader to follow this assignment better some terminologies need to be understood with clarity. In this relation, literature suggests that mental health promotion is a fairly young discipline. Mental health as defined by World Health Organization is a “state of well being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, cope with normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community” (WHO, 2001), According to WHO again, mental health promotion is different from mental health prevention. Mental health promotion aims to promote positive mental health by enhancing well being from the psychological perspective. This would eventually increase the individual’s competence and reliance, but it would also support living conditions and environments. While this is acceptable as a working definition of mental health promotion, mental health prevention would aim to reduce the symptoms of the mental disorders. To be able to do this, mental health promotional strategies are useful. Another facet of these promotional activities would be an activity specifically designed to enhance positive mental health in the community. As a secondary outcome of such activities, one can achieve decreased incidence of mental disorders. From the Australian perspective in terms of prevention and promotion, the second National Mental Health Plan emphasized the use of a range of settings in which mental health promotion and community education could occur, and the groups of workers who should be targeted to undertake activities in this area. The key development in this area of the plan was a population health approach to mental health. This did, however, acknowledge that different groups within the population required different services and interventions (National Action Plan for Promotion, Prevention, and Early Intervention for Mental Health, 2000). The second national mental health plan specified the groups with whom partnership was needed to be developed. These were consumers, families, and carers, private psychiatrists and the private mental health sector, the wider health sector, non-government agencies, the broader community, general practitioners, emergency services, community support services, and others. Thus the National Action Plan for Promotion, Prevention, and Early Intervention for Mental Health 2000 clearly articulated the population health approach to mental health, and as expected, such an approach seeks to develop strategies which attend to the mental health status and mental health needs of the whole population. Central to this action plan are the themes of attention to improving family environments, building family-friendly workplaces, enhancing parenting skills, reduction of abuse and neglect, and increased attention to early identification and intervention. Therefore, mental health promotional activities have been developed for individuals, groups, and communities in an effort to enhance individual’s competence, self-esteem, and sense of well being rather than to intervene in the prevention of emotional problems, social problems, or mental disorders. The Australian definition of mental health is in line with the WHO definition, it is not simply the absence of mental disorders but also indicates the capacity of individuals within groups and in the environment to interact with one another in ways that promote subjective wellbeing, optimal development, and use of cognitive, affective, and relational mental abilities. As per definition provided by 1991 Australian Health Ministers, this also aims towards accomplishment of individual and collective goals consistent with justice (National Action Plan for Promotion, Prevention, and Early Intervention for Mental Health 2000). As a mental health worker designing a mental health promotional activity, it is important to remember that those which we call mental disorders are actually illnesses that are diagnosed an entities that significantly interfere with an individual’s cognitive, emotional, or social abilities. These can be of different types with differing degrees of severity. Some of these indeed are perceived to be public health issues, and these are depression, anxiety, substance use disorders, psychosis, and dementia. These are diagnosed by DSM-IV and ICD-10 criteria. Although mental illness is synonymous with mental disorder, a mental health problem differs from them. A mental health problem also interferes with a person’s cognitive, emotional, or social abilities, but to a lesser extent than a mental disorder. These are experienced more commonly as mental health complaints and include the psychological ill health that is temporarily experienced as a reaction to stressors in life. Although the distinction between mental health problems and mental health disorders are not well defined and is made on the basis of the severity and duration of symptoms, the more important thing about mental health problems is to remember that despite being less severe and of shorter duration, these can eventually culminate into a mental health disorder (Baum, F., 1998). The promotional activity in order to be effective would inculcate mental health literacy. This comprises knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders in population and in community. This knowledge would help the recognition of specific mental health disorders and would aid their management and prevention. Since this involves a multi-pronged approach to promote knowledge to seek mental health information, cultivate knowledge of risk factors and causes, of self-treatments and of professional help available, and development of attitudes that promote recognition and appropriate help seeking, these activities fit well into the framework that promotes a population approach in this area (Casswell, S., 2000). Therefore, mental health promotion can simply be envisioned as health promotion focused on mental health that would enable people to take control over and to increase their mental health. This would, therefore, be such an activity that tends to maximise mental health and well being among populations and individuals. The question arises what could be the design of such an activity. Would it be specifically designed as a part of health promotional activities that adopts a holistic definition of health that logically would direct its actions towards mental as well as physical health? Can mental health promotion be an activity integral to general health promotion as its part? There is always a risk in this approach that mental health promotion can be overlooked in the priority often accorded to physical health (Department of Human Services, 2001). Mental health promotion is any action taken to maximise mental health and wellbeing among populations and individuals. The people are empowered and enabled to maximise their health potentials, if necessary through influencing environmental conditions. This the activity can be designed as a part of the process aimed at changing environments, social, physical, economic, educational, and cultural. If mental health conditions and their manifestations are results of inadequate coping skills, a promotional activity can promote coping skills and increase that capacity of coping of the communities that include both families and individuals. Such mental health promotional activities would target providing power, knowledge, skills, information, and strategies, and necessary resources to them. Mental health promotion is applicable across the whole spectrum of interventions and should be concerned with promoting wellbeing across the entire population groups that are currently well, those at risk, and for those already ill. Therefore, it has a component of prevention that refers to interventions that can be deployed even before the onset of the disorder at the initial phase. The goal of such an activity would be to reduce the incidence and prevalence of mental health problems and mental disorders. In the model of prevention applied to mental health, this belongs to the concept of primary prevention with categories such as universal, selective, and indicated. These terms deem explanation. The universal targets the whole population, selective targets the population groups at increased risk of developing the disorder, and indicated targets people showing minimal signs and symptoms of the disorder (Edwards, R., Jumper-Thurman, P., Plested, B., Oetting, E., & Swanson, L., 2000). In the Australian context, mental illness causes 13% of the disease burden, particularly alcohol and drug use disorders in males. The National Mental Health strategy provides a framework for the modernization of public mental health services and for the monitoring of the progress of the plan, particularly in relation to deinstitutionalization, consumer rights, the linkage of mental health services with allied health services, the promotion of mental health, prevention, primary care, and the evaluation of quality and effectiveness of the services. This framework thus means that mental health services would now be provided as a part of mainstream health and community care (Fiske, G., 2000). As mention earlier, Action plan 2000, approaches mental health at a population level. This is based on the concept that health and illness at personal, local, national, and global levels result from a complex interplay of biological, psychological, social, environmental, economic, and political factors, and it recognizes the value of activities that can offer a benefit for the population as a group, without very discernible benefits to a specific individual. This model of mental health encompasses the full range of risk and protective factors that determine health at the individual, family, community, and society levels. Protective factors, on the other hand, tend to reduce the likelihood that a disorder will develop, and promotional activities on that ground would help people develop resilience against adversities, and learning out of these activities would tend to moderate the impact of stress and transient symptoms on the person’s social and emotional wellbeing. Promotional activities specially pay attention to the risk factors that increase the likelihood that a disorder will develop or exacerbate the burden of existing disorders. In a way, promotional activities directed towards risk factors tend to control a person’s vulnerability to a particular mental health condition (National Action Plan for Promotion, Prevention, and Early Intervention for Mental Health, 2000). This appears extremely legitimate since most risk and protective factors for mental health lie outside the mental health domain and are not covered by mental health services. The precipitation of a mental health condition often is a result of crucial interplay of factors or conditions in the everyday lives of the individuals and communities. Risk and protective factors occur through income and social status, physical environments, families, biology and genetics, personal health practices and coping skills, sport and recreation, the availability of opportunities as well as through access to health services (Giesbrecht, N. and Rankin, J., 2002). These factors offer validity to such mental health promotional activities in a greater sense. Moreover, it is acknowledged that making changes to the prevailing conditions affecting mental health generally necessitates long-term sustained effort across multiple sectors of the community. It must be understood that effective promotion, prevention, and early intervention activities are not confined to traditional mental health domains. Actual enhancement of mental health requires interventions in all strata of the community, and the key factor driving that is recognition of the fact that domains of life are interrelated throughout all sectors of the community (Graham, K., and Chandler-Coutts, M., 2000). Drinking in high school and junior high school, for example, can either be experimental or it might signal an incipient problem. Schools, families, and community efforts are critical to addressing, containing, reducing, or preventing alcohol- and drug-related problems in adolescence. Early intervention can focus on an individual or target a specific high-risk population. The failing academic performance of a single student might flag a problem, or the collective behavior in a school might call for educative intervention. Just as education on substance use and abuse is an important responsibility at all community mental health units, it is also an essential part of early intervention. Almost 9 percent of the adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 meet the diagnostic criteria for use or abuse. That’s the bad news—an appropriate level of care would probably be indicated for this population. The good news is that 91 percent of this population did not meet the criteria for abuse or dependence. But this does not necessarily mean that this larger group is free of experimentation and incipient substance-related problems; many in this group might, in fact, benefit from early intervention. Another opportunity for promotional activity and early intervention is in college (Heale, P., Stockwell, T., Deitze, P, Chikritzhs, T. and Catalano, P., 2000). While most of these college students will reduce their drinking significantly upon completing their studies and entering the world of work, early intervention will have accounted for a large percentage of these spontaneous remissions. As previously discussed, such interventions may be individual or collective: a student or a student body. The fact that such binge drinking rates are so high in college, however, indicates that there is enough scope of promotional activity in this area. Because college binge drinking rates are higher among students living away from home, the responsibility for early intervention falls upon the community and the school. Professors and administrators should be trained to identify the indicators of alcohol or drug problems among its students. This does not mean that they should become diagnosticians but that they need to take action where the problem is evident. Such action might be the implementation of educational and counseling services. The promotional activity can take into account the ongoing education on all aspects of the possible consequences of alcohol use. Therefore, a promotional activity would be designed that would attract the community and local college and university students. This would be designed to promote awareness about drinking and its adverse effects taking into account that many people do not know the effects. Moreover, this could be an opportunity to identify the at-risk cases who would need to be intervened at the earliest. Binge drinking is defined as consuming half of the recommended weekly consumption of alcohol in a single session. This involves behavioural health issues, yet it has received meager attention as a component of mental health promotion programmes. Binge drinking of alcohol lacks empirical evidence (Turner, J.C., 2007), and the ideal mental health promotional activity should take an approach of health-risk appraisals in combination with health risk campaign, identifying and targeting higher-risk individuals, and integrating alcohol prevention messages within the broader contexts of general overall health (South, J. and Tilford, S., 2000). Charts and posters will be displayed in the area of the activity. The contents of these promotional materials would be directed towards raising awareness. High alcohol consumption is a well-known aetilogy for high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, neuropathy, and cirrhosis of liver (Chenet, L. and Britton, A., 2001). An array of psychosocial aberrations leading to mishaps, such as, accidents, injuries, suicides, crimes, domestic violence, rape, murder, and unsafe sex may all result from high levels of alcohol consumption. These problems arise specifically out of excessive alcohol consumption in a single drinking session (Holder, H., 2003). In another section, the epidemiologic and demographic details related to binge drinking would be displayed in a separate section. These may include the following facts. The incidence of traumatic injuries out of car accidents is twice when the blood alcohol level of the driver is 80 mg/100mL, and it shoots up to ten times more with 150 mg/mL. A similar pattern emerges with non-traffic accidents. The range of adverse medical, personal, and social effects with alcohol consumption, hence, is dependent on the amount of overall consumption and the pattern of drinking. It has been suggested that drinkers, particularly binge drinkers, have impaired reasoning and memory functions attributed to regression of hippocampus. Binge drinking can, therefore, be termed as a dangerous pattern of consumption, the severity of which is determined by how frequently it occurs and over how long a period it is maintained. Apart from these, binge drinking causes higher level of psychological morbidity, specially anxiety and neurosis that might predispose to acute unsafe sex incidences and chronic alcohol dependence later in life (Holder, H., and Moore, R., 2000). Our target group, hence, mainly are the adults in the college student group where a health promotion activity against binge drinking would have a higher chance of motivational results. Our activity can at least create an awareness of the problem, and application of theories of mental health promotional policy have higher chances of being effective here, and this exercise in the mental health week setting can act as the building block of future mental health promotions. As has been discussed earlier, this develops from the framework of the 2000 Australian Plan, since it accepts that fact that every citizen is affected by alcohol whether they drink or not, and much of alcohol-related problems are preventable. Involvement of community, family, professors, peers of the drinkers would enhance the magnitude of the intervention, and therefore on a broader sense, every visitor of the mental health week are targets, some may be influenced in the knowledge front and some may be inspired to quit or control drinking after this activity that would demonstrate its adverse effects on the mental health. Harmful and hazardous drinkers who have received brief interventions often moderate their drinking habits, and it is accepted that interventions and health promotions beginning at the rudimentary and primary level would reduce the hazardous and harmful habits to a low-risk level (Lapham, S.C., Gregory, C., and McMillan, G., 2003). Effective public health and health promotion activities help people maintain and improve health, reduce disease risks, and can successfully improve wellbeing of the individual and community. Usually such successes require behaviour change at many levels. The behaviour change approach of health promotion aims to encourage individual behaviour conducive to freedom from disease and uses behaviour change to encourage adoption of a healthier life style (Yanovitzky, I. and Stryker, J., 2001). This health promotion strategy emphasizes the values of healthy life style as defined by the experts. The most successful promotional strategies and initiatives achieve the desired outcomes because those are guided by expert knowledge giving rise to a clear understanding of targeted health behaviour in a specific environmental context (Morawska, A. and Oei, T.P., 2005). Health behaviour theory impregnated with ideas of creating awareness about binge drinking and thereby, implementing the goal of controlling the behaviour of the clients on the problems of binge drinking is a psychosocial manipulation targeting consumer behaviour and strategies to modify it (Major, A., 2004). This approach has the hidden goal of imposing alien values on the client in order to modify it since it is acknowledged that individual behaviour is the primary cause of ill health in the specific issue of alcohol abuse (Marlatt, G.A. and Witkiewitz, K., 2002). The promoter must allow practical considerations of the client’s negative feelings, and approach must be unimposing. The practitioners usually use theory to investigate answers to the questions, why, what, and how health problems would be addressed (Anonymous, 2005). The information collected from this particular behaviour helps the planners and promoters to develop a promotional programme, and this also helps devising strategies to have an impact. Theory also aids to recognize the indicators to be monitored and measured during evaluation of the programme, and then programme planning, implementation, and monitoring is more likely to succeed (Glanz, K., Rimer, B.K., Lewis, F.M., 2002). Effective promotional activity uses theories and strategies appropriate to situation. The promotional activity was to raise awareness of binge drinking in university students in the age range of 18 to 25 years mainly and the community and support groups generally. Additionally, the objective of the project was to increase awareness in the students of what a unit amount is and how many units does it need to drink for binge drinking and how dangerous could it be for own health and society if one goes above the limit. In recent years, health promotion campaigns have emphasized the negative effects of continued heavy drinking on health and have strongly advocated drinking within sensible weekly limits, 2-3 units per day for women and 3-4 units for men (Homel, R., McIlwain, G., and Carvolth, R., 2001). One unit is equivalent to 10 mL of pure alcohol, one-half a pint of beer, or a small wine glass. Binge drinking, on the other hand, is defined as drinking half the amount of recommended weekly consumption in a single session, making it 7 units for women and 10 units for men (Webster-Harrison, P.J., Barton, A.G., Sanders, H.P., Anderson, S.D., and Dobbs, F., 2002). Using this definition, it was found that the prevalence of binge drinking was highest in the younger age group with 31.1% of drinkers in the range of 18 to 24, and they engage in binge drinking at least once a week. Male drinkers were predisposed to more binge drinking, and 25.4% of the drinkers were engaged in full-time education (Park, C.L. and Levenson, M.R., 2002). By choosing to have a promotional activity in this setting, it is contemplated that we can reach the most prospective target group who do not even know how much of drinking constitutes a hazardous drinking behaviour. This approach, as is evident from the responses in the activity, would increase awareness of the need for a change and through personal participation would ensure personalized information about the risks of binge drinking and would motivate the participants and encourage them to make specific plans. This would assist the individuals with developing and implementing concrete action plans with help in setting gradual goals and also to assist with feedback, problem solving, social support, and reinforcement. In other words, if people are aware about how their lifestyle may affect their mental health, they would change their habits (Fitzpatrick, J.J., 2006). The promotional activity, however, will have to be executed by a group created for this purpose, and all the group members must be present and actively participating. The activity would happen in the community mental health center in a booth specifically designed for such purpose. The booth will be well organized with sweets and refreshments and display on the stands. This will attract the public and the students. All who will attend will spend time, and while spending time they will be particularly interested in the displayed posters, “How Much is Too Much” followed by a game created for the visitors. The game will be very simple demonstrative game to determine the amount an individual takes and how much they are over the limit. Depending on the answers from the students, a group member will pour water on a large wine glass to demonstrate the amounts. As expected, most of the visitors will not know how much over the limit they have been drinking. The plan is that after seeing the amount they have been over the limit, they will be surprised and shocked. Few will not play the game for fear of disclosure of their heavy drinking to their friends. While doing these tests and after that, they will receive information about the prescribed limit of alcoholic drinks with highlight that alcohol is a poison. The next activity after the test will be the bulletin board and display stand, where leaflets from the Department of Health will be displayed. It will also contain precise information about the effects of binge drinking from Alcohol Is Poison, and how to deal with it; written by David Moore, Published by Portman Group, printed by Belmont Press, 2005 and alcohol concern leaflets. There will be a unit calculator that will be used to calculate how much one has and how much he is over the limit. One of the group members will discuss the effects of drinking alcohol and its adverse effects on many organ systems with the visitors. All this will be directed to create awareness among people; specifically students about their drinking behaviour, and this would manipulate the attitude, behavioural beliefs, and control beliefs. The last part will be the questionnaire that will question about the individual daily limit, knowledge about three adverse physical effects of binge drinking, and assessment of level of information after visit to the activity booth (Local Government Focus., 2000a). The experiment and information in this promotional activity all should have impact on the emotions of the students, embarrassment, insecurity, new knowledge, and enriched awareness about binge drinking. This project will highlight the fact that this kind of drinking is addiction, even if this is social outing to them as of now, in no time, this would transform into addiction, and the objective of the program is that they will be aware of this possibility after coming into our booth. Our objectives will essentially be to let the visitors be aware about pros and cons of binge drinking, and since everyone is expected to know what his unit amount is, how many units make one a binge drinker and how that can affect the body in the long run, it can be considered that the objective of this promotional activity will be met (Alcohol Healthwatch., 2001). The possible problems and hindrances are many. There should be a trained group to handle and attend the visitors. This kind of promotional activity must be very organized to really cater the benefits to the target group. Explanation and sharing thoughts is a very important part of promotion. Therefore, time per person is crucial, and to ensure that a large group of activists and a large area are both necessary. If the group is small and the area is crowded, many people may not enter the area. Promotional booklets and leaflets must be ample so every visitor must be provided with one (Department of Treasury and Finance, 2003). This is essentially a short term promotional programme, and all awareness promotional programmes must be a life-long process, and they need to be reiterated throughout the life spans of the target groups to express some benefits. A week-long programme of such dimension on the wake of Mental Health Week is not expected to have an ever-lasting promotional output, since that requires interventions and work in the community with the identified target groups. However, the positive effects of such activities also cannot be ignored in the sense that the people other than the target group would be educated that such things can be controlled with appropriate intervention. The response of the questionnaires will be the proofs for achievement of the objectives from such a promotional activity. In the long run, many of these people can seek help as a result of such awareness from the community mental health unit, and this can be an opportunity for early intervention. An evaluation is a must of such activity, and a list of stake holders and independent auditors will be produced. This initiative aims to achieve awareness among people, specially college students about the ill effects of binge drinking. A questionnaire that will be developed will serve the purpose partly to know the effects following the activity. 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