Mental Health Audit Paper

31 y/o AA male patient seen today for psychiatric-mental health assessment. He is awake, alert and oriented x4. He is calm, cooperative and follows commands during assessment. The patient reports he is depressed, difficulty sleeping and nightmares at night. The patient explained his depression is as a result of deep thinking from a news he received two days ago from his elder brother that his mother is ill. Stressors identified by the patient include losing his job a week ago before the news about his mother; his wife is 6-months pregnant with their first child, who currently works part-time at her present job; patient relates difficulty paying monthly bills and inability to provide adequately for his family as a man. The patient denies mood swings, suicidal/homicidal thoughts and ideation. Patient reports his spouse is at work at the moment and he does not want to put stress on his wife due to her current condition. Patient denies been hospitalized for depression or psychiatric illness; and denies family history of mental illness. Patient reports he is seeking help because he does not like feeling this way using terms of “helpless and loss of worth from his spouse”. Patient reports he needs help with his depression and nightmares before his current condition get out of hands and ruined his marriage.

emotionally capable of making an informed decision regarding participation in this study. Of the participants, 250 were male and 300 were female. Participants were selected from general

and Dentistry and Director of the Program in Disaster Mental Health in the Department of Psychiatry and the UR Center for Disaster Medicine and Emergency Preparedness. For over a decade, he has responded to numerous national disasters as a volunteer with the American Red Cross. He has also developed comprehensive disaster mental health training programs for the New York State Office of Mental Health and the New York State Department of Health currently being disseminated throughout every county, state psychiatric center and acute healthcare facility throughout New York State.

For my secondary research I used the website city-data.com and typed in the area code 32082, Palm Valley, Florida. I chose this area because there is a greater number of older residents living in that area. Although my clinic will be available for all populations a greater emphasis will be placed on the helping the elderly. However, the current median age is 48 years old but compared to other numbers the amount of elderly is extremely large (~5,834 people). There are around 30,000 people living in that area with the median household income over the state average estimated at $87,878. There is also a higher percentage of people in that area with a bachelor’s degree (38%). The race in that area is mostly white (~93%), Hispanics (~3%), Asian (~1.6%), and (~1%)

Currently, The population of elderly are estimated to be increasing in number (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2014). The government is concerning about the pressure being placed on public resources as the result of aging population. The aging populations can be vulnerable to different acute and chronic disorder, which can decrease their mortality rate. This can stifle patients’ normal living pattern, which can lead to the vulnerability of experiencing moods disorder, such as depression and anxiety (Potvin et al., 2013). This will lead to the increase

Fritz, Charles. Disasters and Mental Health: Therapeutic Principles Drawn from Disaster Studies. Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware, 1996.

In today’s society with wars and other issues that affect the world, counselors have vicarious trauma or secondary trauma stress because the interactions with clients are repetitive. The role of the counselor is to help survivors and first responders deal with the on slot of issues one could encounter, so being able to help clients incorporate ways of coping will help ease the pain from the crisis of events such as the or the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami and Charleston Church Mascara shooting. As counselors continue to see patients who are suffering, it is important to recognize when vicarious trauma or secondary trauma stress are occurring and take time not to be emotional mentally involve in living the trauma with the

Sound mental health helps us to live our lives wholesomely and with a sense of well being. Though this seems to be an adult state of mind, how we have been brought up and conditioned through our growing years plays an important role. Mental strength means we are confident of dealing with anything that's happens. Chronic stress and anxiety is banished since we are confident of our ability to handle life as it comes. Even though life is uncertain we are assured that we can work it out. However, how many of us actually feel this way? Rather we find ourselves wondering and questioning if we will be able to manage life situations like our work, finances, families etc.

When I first started my college journey I initially majored in Biology. Not knowing what I wanted to do, I was influenced by my advisor to enter the biology field. After my third year, I decided not to pursue biology anymore, and that’s when I discovered my passion for the Psychology field. After receiving my undergrad in psychology, I knew that I wanted to get my masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, but I had no idea of how broad this area is. This week assignment granted me the opportunity to interview someone who has been in this profession for 25 plus years who has worked in all sectors when it comes to mental health counseling. It allowed me to learn the pros and cons of this field and it even gave me more insight and clarity on exactly what I wanted to do. I found this week assignment to be very informative and I believe it is necessary for anyone that’s interesting in entering in this field. I am grateful for the knowledge and advice that I received during this week assignment.

Throughout the first few weeks of working on the Mental Heath Unit at Victoria Hospital, I was exposed to many new and different situations in regards to patient care. One situation in particular that stuck out to me occurred during my first week when I was working with a patient who had schizophrenia and paranoia. During this time, I was required to give this gentleman his intramuscular (IM) depot injection of Invega Sustenna, which assists in managing the symptoms of schizophrenia. For confidentiality reasons, this patient will be referred to as Roger for the remainder of the reflection.

Since the 1900s, the field of crisis intervention has developed concepts and practices that focus on civilian populations and individuals exposed to harmful situations such as the military. Moreover, disaster mental health that targets first responders is a field of practice that has developed during the same period. The development of this field of crisis intervention that targets first responders was influenced by various factors i.e. the realization of occupational risk these individuals are exposed to, emergence of critical incident stress management, and the increase in global terrorism (Castellano & Plionis, 2006, p.327).

I will review the research article, “Service Characteristics and Counseling Outcomes: Lessons from a Cross-Site Evaluation of Crisis Counseling After Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma”. I found this to be of interest, one because of the trauma piece, two because the increase in natural disasters, and three because of the little empirical and systematic information around program assumptions. The researchers evaluated hypotheses, testing multiple factors that influence program performance. The study concluded with results yielding recommendations for achieving effective and beneficial crisis counseling / disaster relief mental health programs.

While addressing the risk that first responders will encounter when arriving on the scene of a terrorist attack, it is also important to discuss the lasting mental effects that emergency personnel will deal with after the incident is finished. One concern would be that of the mental health of the first responders because studies have shown that many of the emergency personnel that responded to the attacks on the World Trade Center Towers in 2001 suffered from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and panic disorders following the attacks (Thompson, et al., 2014). One study conducted following the September 11 attacks determined that “rescue and recovery workers demonstrated a cumulative incidence of depression of 27.5 percent, post-traumatic stress disorder in 31.9, percent, and panic disorder in 21.1 percent of the rescue and recovery workers that participated in the study” (Wisnivesky, et. al, 2011). This is an astounding number of rescue workers that had to deal with the lasting mental effects from the scene of the World Trade Center attacks. Some of the rescue workers may not have had the correct training or

Veenema et al. (2016) argues that the Office of Public Health, Veterans Emergency Management Evaluation Center (VEMEC), Veterans Health Administration (VHA), U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), with the support of the VA Office of Nursing Services and VHA Office of Emergency Management, started this call to action to recognize challenges and determine the first action steps in thoroughly recognizing related themes to improve the practice of disaster nursing. The goals of the project were to develop a vision for the future

As trauma gained a general understanding and the need for mental health practitioners to understand and treat its effect on those affected, so grew the need for disaster mental health (DMH) workers. As stated by Halpern and Tramontin (2007), although there may be no more stressful setting than a battlefield or combat zone similar symptoms can be found in the unnerving events in day-to-day life (p. 57). “If traumatic stress had remained relevant only in the context of war, there would be no DMH field” (Halpern & Tramontin, 2007, p. 57). With trauma and disasters being acknowledged in the lives of every day individuals, so grew the need for first responders with the ability to provide early interventions for the psychological well being of survivors.