Jennifer E. Thannhauser

Stepped care models (SCM) for mental health support use standardized measures to assess post-secondary students' mental health and assign care. Understanding students' perceptions of these measures and data use is essential for effective outcomes. This study explored students' views regarding utility of standardized measures and their recommendations for data use by providers. Eighteen Canadian undergraduates who completed a survey with standardized measures and a diagnostic interview. Semi-structured Zoom interviews. Codebook thematic analysis identified key themes. Most participants self-identified as female and South/East Asian or Canadian. Three themes emerged: Enhanced Engagement and Empowerment, Greater Responsiveness to Diversity and Context, and Data-Driven Improvement. Students reported that completing measures increased self-awareness and engagement. Students wanted their data to inform improvements to campus-based services. Standardized measures can enhance student self-awareness and empowerment. The ability to contextualize experiences and using student data to inform care may inform more effective support.

Resilience has been championed as important for mitigating stressors and challenges experienced by students during post-secondary education, as evidenced by the abundance of programs aimed at enhancing student resilience. Despite growing attention to resilience, there continues to be a lack of consensus about the definition or operationalization of the concept. Even less is known about how to foster resilience in the post-secondary context, especially for marginalized or underrepresented students, who are recognized to be at increased risk for negative mental health outcomes during their post-secondary education. To address these gaps, we employed qualitative methodology to explore marginalized or underrepresented students’ perceptions of resilience. Findings demonstrated that resilience arises from a complex and dynamic interplay between personal skills and attitudes and resources available within students’ communities. Post-secondary institutions are called to shift from individual student responsibility to a collective and shared responsibility for students’ wellbeing in the face of adversity.

Responses to the transition to online learning during the pandemic underscores the importance of faculty engagement in professional development (PD) to enhance their teaching practices. However, the creation and offering of PD opportunities does not always lead to faculty engagement. Using a change management perspective (the ADKAR framework), this paper examines the facilitators and barriers to instructor engagement in a self-paced, online PD program addressing instructional skills for managing students’ experiences of test anxiety in the classroom. Seven university faculty members participated in focus groups to share their experiences of a pilot PD program in the program. The focus group data were deductively analyzed using the ADKAR framework. Key themes were identified, corresponding to the outcomes of ADKAR: awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcements. Findings emphasized the value of considering PD as a change project, while also recognizing staff well-being as a significant factor that impacts engagement with the change process.

Purpose: With the recent release of the National Standard for Mental Health and Well-Being for Post-Secondary Students, there is increased interest to integrate research and practice for mental health services on post-secondary campuses. Participant-oriented research is a useful framework to bridge this gap. This paper aims to describe the program development and evaluation process and reports challenges and lessons learned to inform future implementation strategies for similar endeavours. Design/methodology/approach: A participant-oriented research approach was used to revise and evaluate an innovative interdisciplinary resilience program, entitled Roots of Resiliency, for post-secondary students. Findings: This case analysis used the development and evaluation of Roots of Resiliency to demonstrate some of the strategies and challenges that exist for participant-oriented research related to mental health in the post-secondary context. Collaborative relationships among the various development team members contributed to an overall positive experience. Some challenges that others who work in post-secondary mental health field may consider include the need for content expertise, the ongoing need for communication among team members and the need for an effective system to give voice to all participants. Originality/value: Any mental health program has a cultural component and is best co-developed by the particular students (e.g. indigenous students) who are to be served by the program. In this regard, the co-design and shared development and evaluation of the current mental health program is an example that can be emulated in other programs within the post-secondary context.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disease of the central nervous system that can cause unpredictable disability. Over the past 10 to 15 years, practitioners and researchers have come to recognize that children and adolescents are at risk for this disease. Drawing on the experiences of pediatric MS patients and their parents, I designed this study to explicate the process of adjustment to the disease. Using Charmaz’s constructivist grounded theory methodology, I developed a preliminary theory that captures the experience of grief in the adjustment process of young people with MS. The core of the theoretical model focuses on two separate, yet overlapping processes: recurring loss and carrying on. Significant turning points influenced the oscillation between these two processes, highlighting the interconnection of intrapersonal and interpersonal dynamics in adjustment to the disease. Results reinforce and extend current grief literature and provide an alternative perspective on adjustment to pediatric chronic illness.

Objective: To determine whether pentoxifylline (PTX) slows the decline of muscle strength and function in ambulatory boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Methods: This was a multicenter, randomized, double-blinded, controlled trial comparing 12 months of daily treatment with PTX or placebo in corticosteroid-treated boys with DMD using a slow-release PTX formulation (∼20 mg/kg/day). The primary outcome was the change in mean total quantitative muscle testing (QMT) score. Secondary outcomes included changes in QMT subscales, manual muscle strength, pulmonary function, and timed function tests. Outcomes were compared using Student t tests and a linear mixed-effects model. Adverse events (AEs) were compared using the Fisher exact test. Results: A total of 64 boys with DMD with a mean age of 9.9 ± 2.9 years were randomly assigned to PTX or placebo in 11 participating Cooperative International Neuromuscular Research Group centers. There was no significant difference between PTX and the placebo group in total QMT scores (p = 0.14) or in most of the secondary outcomes after a 12-month treatment. The use of PTX was associated with mild to moderate gastrointestinal or hematologic AEs. Conclusion: The addition of PTX to corticosteroid-treated boys with DMD at a moderate to late ambulatory stage of disease did not improve or halt the deterioration of muscle strength and function over a 12-month study period. Classification of evidence: This study provides Class I evidence that treatment with PTX does not prevent deterioration in muscle function or strength in corticosteroid-treated boys with DMD.