Emily Howard Jennings Stowe is acclaimed as Canada’s first female school principal, physician to ... more Emily Howard Jennings Stowe is acclaimed as Canada’s first female school principal, physician to practice medicine, and a founding Canadian suffragette. Yet, relatively little has been investigated regarding the life-changing events permitting her to pioneer in these chosen fields. To reveal relationships among the life- changing events in Emily Stowe’s life, a unique narrative research process is engaged to take Stowe’s story and develop it into a particular point of view based on responses to questions posed regarding her life, ranging from those most objective and specific to those that are subjective and more general. This is accomplished by following a prescribed order of question-asking: when, where, who, what, how, and why. The aim is to facilitate a comparison and interpretation of the connections regarding twenty-two of her life-changing events. Four distinct aspects of her life are noted: personal, teacher, physician, and suffragette. It is found that much of Stowe’s success originated from her family’s Establishment connections, her studious intellectual ability, and her decision to obtain her medical education in the United States. There were notable periods in her life that might have ended her career. However, the aforementioned protective features of her status permitted the successful withstanding of these difficulties.
Founded in accordance with 19 th century sex roles and public health concerns, nursing evolved as... more Founded in accordance with 19 th century sex roles and public health concerns, nursing evolved as other-directed, dependent on physician-focused diagnosis, prescription decisions, and public health advancements. The result of this other direction is that public health nurse practitioners have endured significant workplace stress resulting in burnout, especially during COVID-19. To help decrease their burnout, nurses require development of self-direction. The Health Narratives Research Group (HeNReG) has the potential to reduce burnout in nurse practitioners by encouraging the development of self-direction. The HeNReG process is presented through historically analyzed documents regarding reducing burnout in health researchers by developing self-direction including: (1) three years of archived year-end feedback results provided by participants, (2) archived participant responses to specific HeNReG-related writing prompts, and (3) a comparison of HeNReG results with the outcomes of resilience programs. The conclusion-the HeNReG offers an effective option for reducing burnout in health researchers that has the potential to decrease nurse practitioner burnout in a way that resilience programs do not. Tailoring the HeNReG process to public health nurses is discussed, inviting future research for reducing burnout in public health nurses.
Children-Dependents in Social Construction Theory-are assessed within democracies regarding their... more Children-Dependents in Social Construction Theory-are assessed within democracies regarding their ability to self-direct their behavior concerning their associated society. In this regard, childhood represents a lack of self-direction, a life period when people require the guidance and protection of adults. The assumed necessity of adults supervising children in democracies requires substantial social resources, reducing the self-direction of those charged with overseeing children. Given that self-direction defines the optimal experience of people within democratic society, finding ways to increase the self-direction of children is an individual and a social benefit. In this regard, smartphones have improved self-direction in children. How children have become empowered to self-direct their lives with smartphone use considering Social Construction Theory-as Advantaged, Contenders, or Deviants-is the focus of a scoping review conducted on "children, empowerment, smartphones" of the following databases: OVID, JSTOR, ProQuest, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The result is that children permitted to self-direct their activities aided by smartphone technology have comparable social behavior to adults positioned as Advantaged, Contenders, or Deviants and, as such they should be encouraged to utilize smartphone technology to improve their self-direction, as doing so will augment individual and caregiver self-direction, providing increased social benefit.
Human resources management (HRM) development aims at career sustainability. Work-related flow, as... more Human resources management (HRM) development aims at career sustainability. Work-related flow, as originated and defined by Csikszentmihalyi, is a process experienced by those optimally challenged by their work, considered the optimal work-related experience. Happiness is a judgment-dependent state of a pleased satisfaction with one’s current experience that one hopes will continue. PERMA (Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment) represents five measurable factors of positive psychology that constitute well-being. As the optimal work-related experience, flow determines career sustainability compared with either happiness or PERMA factors. HRM development programs focused on happiness or PERMA factors thus represents risk factors regarding an inability to develop career sustainability. Established from this publisher’s founding ongoing concern with sustainability, articles published in MDPI journals with the keywords “flow, Csikszentmihalyi, work” were searched, excluding those pertaining to education, health, leisure, marketing, non-workers, and spirituality. Of 628 results returned, 28 reports were included for potential assessment. Although current studies on flow represented only three, the results regarding flow position it as the best indicator of career sustainability, contrasted to either happiness or PERMA. Consequently, HRM is advised to concentrate on developing practices for assessing and encouraging employees’ engagement with work-related flow in its aim of career sustainability.
COVID-19 has been identified as a virus spread to the respiratory system by minute airborne parti... more COVID-19 has been identified as a virus spread to the respiratory system by minute airborne particles. This method of dispersion is in contrast to its originally anticipated large particle fomite transmission. Although COVID-19 dissemination has been found to be airborne, a continuous health directive to limit contagion during the pandemic was to improve handwashing. Persistent handwashing may aggravate obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), diminishing mental health. With a modest value to handwashing in controlling the spread of COVID-19, determining if the handwashing directive increased the incidence of OCD, promoting negative mental health, is pertinent. A limited review of the parameter “handwashing, mental health, COVID-19, OCD” searched six relevant databases. The result was that negative mental health related to increased handwashing was evident both for those already diagnosed with OCD and regarding new cases of OCD throughout the duration of the pandemic. The exception was for those very few OCD patients demonstrating resilience or on stable medication. The conclusion is that health officials are advised to update details of their health directives as information becomes available during a pandemic. Concerning COVID-19, the directive to concentrate on handwashing should have been modified once it was known that spread of the virus by fomite transmission was improbable, as doing so would have reduced the incidence of OCD and improved mental health of those experiencing OCD. Regarding improved mental health, further OCD research is indicated regarding both resilience and stable medication under pandemic conditions when increased hand-washing is advised.
Emily Howard Jennings Stowe is acclaimed as Canada's first female school principal, physi... more Emily Howard Jennings Stowe is acclaimed as Canada's first female school principal, physician to practice medicine, and a founding Canadian suffragette. Yet, relatively little has been investigated regarding the life-changing events permitting her to pioneer in these chosen fields. To reveal relationships among the lifechanging events in Emily Stowe's life, a unique narrative research process is engaged to take Stowe's story and develop it into a particular point of view based on responses to questions posed regarding her life, ranging from those most objective and specific to those that are subjective and more general. This is accomplished by following a prescribed order of question-asking: when, where, who, what, how, and why. The aim is to facilitate a comparison and interpretation of the connections regarding twenty-two of her life-changing events. Four distinct aspects of her life are noted: personal, teacher, physician, and suffragette. It is found that much of Stowe's success originated from her family's Establishment connections, her studious intellectual ability, and her decision to obtain her medical education in the United States. There were notable periods in her life that might have ended her career. However, the aforementioned protective features of her status permitted the successful withstanding of these difficulties.
Informal dementia home caregiving is viewed negatively and can result in caregiver depression and... more Informal dementia home caregiving is viewed negatively and can result in caregiver depression and anxiety from burnout, potentially compromising caregiving. Solutions are unclear, as caregiving relationships are unique-caregiver creation of a graphic memoir may help to mitigate the negative dementia narrative and reduce experienced burnout. This investigation examines the writing of a graphic memoir by one informal dementia home caregiver, created with the help of a cartoon illustrator and a publisher who edited, printed, and made the graphic memoir available at the psychiatric bookstore considered the largest in North America. Mother of the illustrator and the editor and publisher of this graphic memoir, this author provides the perspective taken in this investigation. The analysis, developed by this author, represents psychoanalytic narrative research, serving as the historical method. Aided by email threads between the publisher/caregiver, publisher/printer, and publisher/bookseller, and a published interview with the dementia caregiver are answers to how writing, illustrating, and publishing the graphic memoir affected the caregiver's narrative reconstruction and burnout. Providing an example for other informal dementia home caregivers similarly to write and illustrate a publishable graphic memoir for their positive narrative reconstruction and to help decrease their depression and anxiety from burnout is the aim.
The ability of doodling to act as an indicator of depression and anxiety regarding research burno... more The ability of doodling to act as an indicator of depression and anxiety regarding research burnout is a topic that has seen the publication of six articles by this author since 2021. This commentary aims to determine the extent to which any of these articles have been cited by subsequent researchers in furthering the literature on doodling. The keywords “C Nash Doodling Burnout” were searched through Google Scholar in February 2024 with 142 returns. Only four of these reports included all keywords. Of these returned studies, two were found to add to the literature on doodling substantially, in part as a result of the citations to the work of this author. However, one of these two publications did so while also including a misrepresentation of this author’s work. With few studies on doodling behavior, noting these publications and their limitations represents an important contribution. This work also adds to the paucity of publications by authors examining citations to their work.
Children are Dependents in a version of social construction theory regarding their inability to s... more Children are Dependents in a version of social construction theory regarding their inability to self-direct their behavior in democratic society. In this regard, childhood represents a lack of self-direction, a life period when people require the guidance and protection of adults. The assumed necessity of adults supervising children in democracies necessitates substantial social resources, reducing the self-direction of those charged with overseeing children. Given that self-direction defines the optimal experience of people within a democratic society, finding ways to increase the self-direction of children is an individual and a social benefit. In this regard, smartphones have improved self-direction in children. How children have become empowered to self-direct their lives with smartphone use considering social construction theory—as Advantaged, Contenders, or Deviants—is the focus of a scoping review conducted on “children, empowerment, smartphones” of the following databases: OVID, JSTOR, ProQuest, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The result is that children permitted to self-direct their activities aided by smartphone technology have comparable social behavior to adults positioned as Advantaged, Contenders, or Deviants, and as such, they should be encouraged to utilize smartphone technology to improve their self-direction, as doing so will augment individual and caregiver self-direction, providing increased social benefit.
Founded in accordance with 19 th century sex roles and public health concerns, nursing evolved as... more Founded in accordance with 19 th century sex roles and public health concerns, nursing evolved as other-directed, dependent on physician-focused diagnosis, prescription decisions, and public health advancements. The result of this other direction is that public health nurse practitioners have endured significant workplace stress resulting in burnout, especially during COVID-19. To help decrease their burnout, nurses require development of self-direction. The Health Narratives Research Group (HeNReG) has the potential to reduce burnout in nurse practitioners by encouraging the development of self-direction. The HeNReG process is presented through historically analyzed documents regarding reducing burnout in health researchers by developing self-direction including: (1) three years of archived year-end feedback results provided by participants, (2) archived participant responses to specific HeNReG-related writing prompts, and (3) a comparison of HeNReG results with the outcomes of resilience programs. The conclusion-the HeNReG offers an effective option for reducing burnout in health researchers that has the potential to decrease nurse practitioner burnout in a way that resilience programs do not. Tailoring the HeNReG process to public health nurses is discussed, inviting future research for reducing burnout in public health nurses.
Children-Dependents in Social Construction Theory-are assessed within democracies regarding their... more Children-Dependents in Social Construction Theory-are assessed within democracies regarding their ability to self-direct their behavior concerning their associated society. In this regard, childhood represents a lack of self-direction, a life period when people require the guidance and protection of adults. The assumed necessity of adults supervising children in democracies requires substantial social resources, reducing the self-direction of those charged with overseeing children. Given that self-direction defines the optimal experience of people within democratic society, finding ways to increase the self-direction of children is an individual and a social benefit. In this regard, smartphones have improved self-direction in children. How children have become empowered to self-direct their lives with smartphone use considering Social Construction Theory-as Advantaged, Contenders, or Deviants-is the focus of a scoping review conducted on "children, empowerment, smartphones" of the following databases: OVID, JSTOR, ProQuest, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The result is that children permitted to self-direct their activities aided by smartphone technology have comparable social behavior to adults positioned as Advantaged, Contenders, or Deviants and, as such they should be encouraged to utilize smartphone technology to improve their self-direction, as doing so will augment individual and caregiver self-direction, providing increased social benefit.
Narrative development is fundamental to human mental health. Interventions providing individuals ... more Narrative development is fundamental to human mental health. Interventions providing individuals with the means to construct and recall robust and effective narratives are necessary in promoting positive mental health outcomes. The primary embodied location of personal narrative development is the hippocampus. Recent advances regarding the relationship among the hippocampus, narrative, and mental health are thus relevant concerning the hippocampal mechanisms that simultaneously function to map environmental position and to generate episodic memories. Consequently, this study considers the role of the hippocampus with a limited, six-database review of "hippocampus, narrative, mental health" that located 127 records, and included 14 reports for study. The results support creating and maintaining stable and coherent narratives as fundamental to human mental health. Without this, people distort facts in their personal accounts, their body functions are disrupted, and their DNA becomes altered (critical to cancer formation and development) in the effort to sustain these personal narratives. As such, narrative construction is found to lead to negative mental health in a variety of ways unless positively developed in a manner compatible with identified hippocampal functions. One intervention proven successful in enhancing robust and effective narratives that are stable and coherent is the Health Narratives Research Process developed for those researchers self-identifying as experiencing burnout. This process is outlined, and its most recent results presented, demonstrating not only improved mental health but doing so in support of identified hippocampal function-offering the opportunity for future research regarding the relationship among narrative development, mental health, and the hippocampus.
COVID-19 has been identified as a virus spread to the respiratory system by minute airborne parti... more COVID-19 has been identified as a virus spread to the respiratory system by minute airborne particles. This method of dispersion is in contrast to its originally anticipated large particle fomite transmission. Although COVID-19 dissemination has been found to be airborne, a continuous health directive to limit contagion during the pandemic was to improve handwashing. Persistent handwashing may aggravate obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), diminishing mental health. With a modest value to handwashing in controlling the spread of COVID-19, determining if the handwashing directive increased the incidence of OCD, promoting negative mental health, is pertinent. A limited review of the parameter “handwashing, mental health, COVID-19, OCD” searched six relevant databases. The result was that negative mental health related to increased handwashing was evident both for those already diagnosed with OCD and regarding new cases of OCD throughout the duration of the pandemic. The exception was for those very few OCD patients demonstrating resilience or on stable medication. The conclusion is that health officials are advised to update details of their health directives as information becomes available during a pandemic. Concerning COVID-19, the directive to concentrate on handwashing should have been modified once it was known that spread of the virus by fomite transmission was improbable, as doing so would have reduced the incidence of OCD and improved mental health of those experiencing OCD. Regarding improved mental health, further OCD research is indicated regarding both resilience and stable medication under pandemic conditions when increased hand-washing is advised.
As distinct human societies, three unique intentional communities are investigated regarding thei... more As distinct human societies, three unique intentional communities are investigated regarding their preferred consensus decision-making practices. It is Identified that each has adopted a different form of consensus decision-making to solve potential group-wide interpersonal conflict. The individual attributes of these three consensus decision-making practices are considered, both from the perspective of maintaining group stability and in relation to individual member's mental health. The communities are a Canadian self-directed public senior elementary and secondary school, an annual English conference for those self-identifying as on the autistic spectrum, and a self-producing Korean popular music (K-pop) group. It is found that the intentional community and participants’ mental health are sustained regarding each of the three consensus decision-making practices. Nevertheless, the resulting decisions generate various stresses within the communities, both as a whole and concerni...
Earlier this year, an editorial by this author was published in the Journal of Mental Health Diso... more Earlier this year, an editorial by this author was published in the Journal of Mental Health Disorders presenting the case for maintaining a focus on burnout in medical students. Burnout is defined as that point when work becomes unpleasant, unfulfilling, and meaningless—leading to exhaustion, cynicism and ineffectiveness. Globally, burnout has been identified as highest in healthcare professionals and is especially noted in medical students, who are found at an elevated risk for depression and suicide. The previous editorial highlighted the role of parental pressure on medical students with perceived parental career expectations as the major factor in younger, non-Western-background medical student stress leading to their burnout. What the editorial didn’t discuss was the type of intervention that can be successful in reducing burnout in healthcare professionals generally—the role of team mindfulness.
Emily Howard Jennings Stowe is acclaimed as Canada’s first female school principal, physician to ... more Emily Howard Jennings Stowe is acclaimed as Canada’s first female school principal, physician to practice medicine, and a founding Canadian suffragette. Yet, relatively little has been investigated regarding the life-changing events permitting her to pioneer in these chosen fields. To reveal relationships among the life- changing events in Emily Stowe’s life, a unique narrative research process is engaged to take Stowe’s story and develop it into a particular point of view based on responses to questions posed regarding her life, ranging from those most objective and specific to those that are subjective and more general. This is accomplished by following a prescribed order of question-asking: when, where, who, what, how, and why. The aim is to facilitate a comparison and interpretation of the connections regarding twenty-two of her life-changing events. Four distinct aspects of her life are noted: personal, teacher, physician, and suffragette. It is found that much of Stowe’s success originated from her family’s Establishment connections, her studious intellectual ability, and her decision to obtain her medical education in the United States. There were notable periods in her life that might have ended her career. However, the aforementioned protective features of her status permitted the successful withstanding of these difficulties.
Founded in accordance with 19 th century sex roles and public health concerns, nursing evolved as... more Founded in accordance with 19 th century sex roles and public health concerns, nursing evolved as other-directed, dependent on physician-focused diagnosis, prescription decisions, and public health advancements. The result of this other direction is that public health nurse practitioners have endured significant workplace stress resulting in burnout, especially during COVID-19. To help decrease their burnout, nurses require development of self-direction. The Health Narratives Research Group (HeNReG) has the potential to reduce burnout in nurse practitioners by encouraging the development of self-direction. The HeNReG process is presented through historically analyzed documents regarding reducing burnout in health researchers by developing self-direction including: (1) three years of archived year-end feedback results provided by participants, (2) archived participant responses to specific HeNReG-related writing prompts, and (3) a comparison of HeNReG results with the outcomes of resilience programs. The conclusion-the HeNReG offers an effective option for reducing burnout in health researchers that has the potential to decrease nurse practitioner burnout in a way that resilience programs do not. Tailoring the HeNReG process to public health nurses is discussed, inviting future research for reducing burnout in public health nurses.
Children-Dependents in Social Construction Theory-are assessed within democracies regarding their... more Children-Dependents in Social Construction Theory-are assessed within democracies regarding their ability to self-direct their behavior concerning their associated society. In this regard, childhood represents a lack of self-direction, a life period when people require the guidance and protection of adults. The assumed necessity of adults supervising children in democracies requires substantial social resources, reducing the self-direction of those charged with overseeing children. Given that self-direction defines the optimal experience of people within democratic society, finding ways to increase the self-direction of children is an individual and a social benefit. In this regard, smartphones have improved self-direction in children. How children have become empowered to self-direct their lives with smartphone use considering Social Construction Theory-as Advantaged, Contenders, or Deviants-is the focus of a scoping review conducted on "children, empowerment, smartphones" of the following databases: OVID, JSTOR, ProQuest, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The result is that children permitted to self-direct their activities aided by smartphone technology have comparable social behavior to adults positioned as Advantaged, Contenders, or Deviants and, as such they should be encouraged to utilize smartphone technology to improve their self-direction, as doing so will augment individual and caregiver self-direction, providing increased social benefit.
Human resources management (HRM) development aims at career sustainability. Work-related flow, as... more Human resources management (HRM) development aims at career sustainability. Work-related flow, as originated and defined by Csikszentmihalyi, is a process experienced by those optimally challenged by their work, considered the optimal work-related experience. Happiness is a judgment-dependent state of a pleased satisfaction with one’s current experience that one hopes will continue. PERMA (Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment) represents five measurable factors of positive psychology that constitute well-being. As the optimal work-related experience, flow determines career sustainability compared with either happiness or PERMA factors. HRM development programs focused on happiness or PERMA factors thus represents risk factors regarding an inability to develop career sustainability. Established from this publisher’s founding ongoing concern with sustainability, articles published in MDPI journals with the keywords “flow, Csikszentmihalyi, work” were searched, excluding those pertaining to education, health, leisure, marketing, non-workers, and spirituality. Of 628 results returned, 28 reports were included for potential assessment. Although current studies on flow represented only three, the results regarding flow position it as the best indicator of career sustainability, contrasted to either happiness or PERMA. Consequently, HRM is advised to concentrate on developing practices for assessing and encouraging employees’ engagement with work-related flow in its aim of career sustainability.
COVID-19 has been identified as a virus spread to the respiratory system by minute airborne parti... more COVID-19 has been identified as a virus spread to the respiratory system by minute airborne particles. This method of dispersion is in contrast to its originally anticipated large particle fomite transmission. Although COVID-19 dissemination has been found to be airborne, a continuous health directive to limit contagion during the pandemic was to improve handwashing. Persistent handwashing may aggravate obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), diminishing mental health. With a modest value to handwashing in controlling the spread of COVID-19, determining if the handwashing directive increased the incidence of OCD, promoting negative mental health, is pertinent. A limited review of the parameter “handwashing, mental health, COVID-19, OCD” searched six relevant databases. The result was that negative mental health related to increased handwashing was evident both for those already diagnosed with OCD and regarding new cases of OCD throughout the duration of the pandemic. The exception was for those very few OCD patients demonstrating resilience or on stable medication. The conclusion is that health officials are advised to update details of their health directives as information becomes available during a pandemic. Concerning COVID-19, the directive to concentrate on handwashing should have been modified once it was known that spread of the virus by fomite transmission was improbable, as doing so would have reduced the incidence of OCD and improved mental health of those experiencing OCD. Regarding improved mental health, further OCD research is indicated regarding both resilience and stable medication under pandemic conditions when increased hand-washing is advised.
Emily Howard Jennings Stowe is acclaimed as Canada's first female school principal, physi... more Emily Howard Jennings Stowe is acclaimed as Canada's first female school principal, physician to practice medicine, and a founding Canadian suffragette. Yet, relatively little has been investigated regarding the life-changing events permitting her to pioneer in these chosen fields. To reveal relationships among the lifechanging events in Emily Stowe's life, a unique narrative research process is engaged to take Stowe's story and develop it into a particular point of view based on responses to questions posed regarding her life, ranging from those most objective and specific to those that are subjective and more general. This is accomplished by following a prescribed order of question-asking: when, where, who, what, how, and why. The aim is to facilitate a comparison and interpretation of the connections regarding twenty-two of her life-changing events. Four distinct aspects of her life are noted: personal, teacher, physician, and suffragette. It is found that much of Stowe's success originated from her family's Establishment connections, her studious intellectual ability, and her decision to obtain her medical education in the United States. There were notable periods in her life that might have ended her career. However, the aforementioned protective features of her status permitted the successful withstanding of these difficulties.
Informal dementia home caregiving is viewed negatively and can result in caregiver depression and... more Informal dementia home caregiving is viewed negatively and can result in caregiver depression and anxiety from burnout, potentially compromising caregiving. Solutions are unclear, as caregiving relationships are unique-caregiver creation of a graphic memoir may help to mitigate the negative dementia narrative and reduce experienced burnout. This investigation examines the writing of a graphic memoir by one informal dementia home caregiver, created with the help of a cartoon illustrator and a publisher who edited, printed, and made the graphic memoir available at the psychiatric bookstore considered the largest in North America. Mother of the illustrator and the editor and publisher of this graphic memoir, this author provides the perspective taken in this investigation. The analysis, developed by this author, represents psychoanalytic narrative research, serving as the historical method. Aided by email threads between the publisher/caregiver, publisher/printer, and publisher/bookseller, and a published interview with the dementia caregiver are answers to how writing, illustrating, and publishing the graphic memoir affected the caregiver's narrative reconstruction and burnout. Providing an example for other informal dementia home caregivers similarly to write and illustrate a publishable graphic memoir for their positive narrative reconstruction and to help decrease their depression and anxiety from burnout is the aim.
The ability of doodling to act as an indicator of depression and anxiety regarding research burno... more The ability of doodling to act as an indicator of depression and anxiety regarding research burnout is a topic that has seen the publication of six articles by this author since 2021. This commentary aims to determine the extent to which any of these articles have been cited by subsequent researchers in furthering the literature on doodling. The keywords “C Nash Doodling Burnout” were searched through Google Scholar in February 2024 with 142 returns. Only four of these reports included all keywords. Of these returned studies, two were found to add to the literature on doodling substantially, in part as a result of the citations to the work of this author. However, one of these two publications did so while also including a misrepresentation of this author’s work. With few studies on doodling behavior, noting these publications and their limitations represents an important contribution. This work also adds to the paucity of publications by authors examining citations to their work.
Children are Dependents in a version of social construction theory regarding their inability to s... more Children are Dependents in a version of social construction theory regarding their inability to self-direct their behavior in democratic society. In this regard, childhood represents a lack of self-direction, a life period when people require the guidance and protection of adults. The assumed necessity of adults supervising children in democracies necessitates substantial social resources, reducing the self-direction of those charged with overseeing children. Given that self-direction defines the optimal experience of people within a democratic society, finding ways to increase the self-direction of children is an individual and a social benefit. In this regard, smartphones have improved self-direction in children. How children have become empowered to self-direct their lives with smartphone use considering social construction theory—as Advantaged, Contenders, or Deviants—is the focus of a scoping review conducted on “children, empowerment, smartphones” of the following databases: OVID, JSTOR, ProQuest, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The result is that children permitted to self-direct their activities aided by smartphone technology have comparable social behavior to adults positioned as Advantaged, Contenders, or Deviants, and as such, they should be encouraged to utilize smartphone technology to improve their self-direction, as doing so will augment individual and caregiver self-direction, providing increased social benefit.
Founded in accordance with 19 th century sex roles and public health concerns, nursing evolved as... more Founded in accordance with 19 th century sex roles and public health concerns, nursing evolved as other-directed, dependent on physician-focused diagnosis, prescription decisions, and public health advancements. The result of this other direction is that public health nurse practitioners have endured significant workplace stress resulting in burnout, especially during COVID-19. To help decrease their burnout, nurses require development of self-direction. The Health Narratives Research Group (HeNReG) has the potential to reduce burnout in nurse practitioners by encouraging the development of self-direction. The HeNReG process is presented through historically analyzed documents regarding reducing burnout in health researchers by developing self-direction including: (1) three years of archived year-end feedback results provided by participants, (2) archived participant responses to specific HeNReG-related writing prompts, and (3) a comparison of HeNReG results with the outcomes of resilience programs. The conclusion-the HeNReG offers an effective option for reducing burnout in health researchers that has the potential to decrease nurse practitioner burnout in a way that resilience programs do not. Tailoring the HeNReG process to public health nurses is discussed, inviting future research for reducing burnout in public health nurses.
Children-Dependents in Social Construction Theory-are assessed within democracies regarding their... more Children-Dependents in Social Construction Theory-are assessed within democracies regarding their ability to self-direct their behavior concerning their associated society. In this regard, childhood represents a lack of self-direction, a life period when people require the guidance and protection of adults. The assumed necessity of adults supervising children in democracies requires substantial social resources, reducing the self-direction of those charged with overseeing children. Given that self-direction defines the optimal experience of people within democratic society, finding ways to increase the self-direction of children is an individual and a social benefit. In this regard, smartphones have improved self-direction in children. How children have become empowered to self-direct their lives with smartphone use considering Social Construction Theory-as Advantaged, Contenders, or Deviants-is the focus of a scoping review conducted on "children, empowerment, smartphones" of the following databases: OVID, JSTOR, ProQuest, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The result is that children permitted to self-direct their activities aided by smartphone technology have comparable social behavior to adults positioned as Advantaged, Contenders, or Deviants and, as such they should be encouraged to utilize smartphone technology to improve their self-direction, as doing so will augment individual and caregiver self-direction, providing increased social benefit.
Narrative development is fundamental to human mental health. Interventions providing individuals ... more Narrative development is fundamental to human mental health. Interventions providing individuals with the means to construct and recall robust and effective narratives are necessary in promoting positive mental health outcomes. The primary embodied location of personal narrative development is the hippocampus. Recent advances regarding the relationship among the hippocampus, narrative, and mental health are thus relevant concerning the hippocampal mechanisms that simultaneously function to map environmental position and to generate episodic memories. Consequently, this study considers the role of the hippocampus with a limited, six-database review of "hippocampus, narrative, mental health" that located 127 records, and included 14 reports for study. The results support creating and maintaining stable and coherent narratives as fundamental to human mental health. Without this, people distort facts in their personal accounts, their body functions are disrupted, and their DNA becomes altered (critical to cancer formation and development) in the effort to sustain these personal narratives. As such, narrative construction is found to lead to negative mental health in a variety of ways unless positively developed in a manner compatible with identified hippocampal functions. One intervention proven successful in enhancing robust and effective narratives that are stable and coherent is the Health Narratives Research Process developed for those researchers self-identifying as experiencing burnout. This process is outlined, and its most recent results presented, demonstrating not only improved mental health but doing so in support of identified hippocampal function-offering the opportunity for future research regarding the relationship among narrative development, mental health, and the hippocampus.
COVID-19 has been identified as a virus spread to the respiratory system by minute airborne parti... more COVID-19 has been identified as a virus spread to the respiratory system by minute airborne particles. This method of dispersion is in contrast to its originally anticipated large particle fomite transmission. Although COVID-19 dissemination has been found to be airborne, a continuous health directive to limit contagion during the pandemic was to improve handwashing. Persistent handwashing may aggravate obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), diminishing mental health. With a modest value to handwashing in controlling the spread of COVID-19, determining if the handwashing directive increased the incidence of OCD, promoting negative mental health, is pertinent. A limited review of the parameter “handwashing, mental health, COVID-19, OCD” searched six relevant databases. The result was that negative mental health related to increased handwashing was evident both for those already diagnosed with OCD and regarding new cases of OCD throughout the duration of the pandemic. The exception was for those very few OCD patients demonstrating resilience or on stable medication. The conclusion is that health officials are advised to update details of their health directives as information becomes available during a pandemic. Concerning COVID-19, the directive to concentrate on handwashing should have been modified once it was known that spread of the virus by fomite transmission was improbable, as doing so would have reduced the incidence of OCD and improved mental health of those experiencing OCD. Regarding improved mental health, further OCD research is indicated regarding both resilience and stable medication under pandemic conditions when increased hand-washing is advised.
As distinct human societies, three unique intentional communities are investigated regarding thei... more As distinct human societies, three unique intentional communities are investigated regarding their preferred consensus decision-making practices. It is Identified that each has adopted a different form of consensus decision-making to solve potential group-wide interpersonal conflict. The individual attributes of these three consensus decision-making practices are considered, both from the perspective of maintaining group stability and in relation to individual member's mental health. The communities are a Canadian self-directed public senior elementary and secondary school, an annual English conference for those self-identifying as on the autistic spectrum, and a self-producing Korean popular music (K-pop) group. It is found that the intentional community and participants’ mental health are sustained regarding each of the three consensus decision-making practices. Nevertheless, the resulting decisions generate various stresses within the communities, both as a whole and concerni...
Earlier this year, an editorial by this author was published in the Journal of Mental Health Diso... more Earlier this year, an editorial by this author was published in the Journal of Mental Health Disorders presenting the case for maintaining a focus on burnout in medical students. Burnout is defined as that point when work becomes unpleasant, unfulfilling, and meaningless—leading to exhaustion, cynicism and ineffectiveness. Globally, burnout has been identified as highest in healthcare professionals and is especially noted in medical students, who are found at an elevated risk for depression and suicide. The previous editorial highlighted the role of parental pressure on medical students with perceived parental career expectations as the major factor in younger, non-Western-background medical student stress leading to their burnout. What the editorial didn’t discuss was the type of intervention that can be successful in reducing burnout in healthcare professionals generally—the role of team mindfulness.
Negative mental health in students currently is classified as a global crisis with the highest an... more Negative mental health in students currently is classified as a global crisis with the highest and lowest student achievers recognized at greatest risk. Public schooling, in reproducing accepted psychosocial beliefs through standardized learning, developed separately from necessitating student mental health, in contrast to self-directed learning. Differing from standardized learning, the objective of self-directed learning in public schools is the creation of relevant support structures for student mental health, promoting positive psychosocial outcomes. The designed separation of public schooling from both mental health and self-directed learning was first acknowledged-and lamented-by John Dewey, over 100 years ago, in anticipating today's mental health crisis. Yet, in responding effectively to the limitations of COVID-19, self-directed learning became an acknowledged learning method in public schools, potentially able to be accommodated by them regularly in support of mental health through the use of online technology. This study investigates the COVID-19 results of self-directed online learning in public schools through a Google Scholar search of peer reviewed research regarding self-directed learning, online learning, and mental health during COVID-19, recommending support for self-initiated self-directed online learning so that self-directed learning can continue, post COVID-19, improving student mental health in public schools, leading to positive psychosocial outcomes.
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Papers by Carol Nash