Attitudes of Counselors Toward Collaboration with Healthcare Professionals

Counselors are experts in handling mental health issues, however many mental health issues are reported to primary care providers. Collaboration between counselors and healthcare providers is increasing yet little is known about counselors’ attitudes toward this challenging practice. In this study 165 counselors completed surveys related to their attitudes and social anxiety levels toward interacting with healthcare professionals. Counselors in this study reported having slightly negative attitudes toward healthcare professionals. There was no significant relationship between attitudes and social anxiety. Social anxiety was inversely related to frequency of collaboration, however, only a few counselors reported social anxiety. More importantly, most counselors in this study reported collaborating to benefit clients which is promising considering the growing mental health needs. Implications for Counselor Educators and Supervisors for promoting collaboration as a standard of care are provided

PROGRAMMATIC EVALUATION OF COLLEGE INITIATIVES TO REDUCE TOBACCO USE*

ABSTRACT College students are particularly vulnerable to tobacco initiation and use, but college prevention services are rare and often unevaluated. The present project evaluated 27 tobacco use prevention initiatives on college campuses in one southern U.S. state. Each initiative included one 20 hour/week on-campus student coordinator, a faculty or staff advisor, and a monitor. An outside evaluator rated each initiative on compliance with seven activities and five administrative necessities. Most (22) initiatives nearly met, met, or exceeded expectations, but five were noncompliant. Initiative scores correlated positively with students' and advisors' ratings, but were unrelated to the on-campus coordinator's sex, longevity in office, or past tobacco prevention experience. Though limited by not including a rating of the quality of the interventions, this program evaluation provided college tobacco prevention initiatives with an overall rating and specific feedback on how to improve, and allowed each initiative to tailor programs to its specific campus

Suicide Prevention: Guidelines for Schools

Adolescent suicide is escalating, especially among White male teenagers who use drugs and/or alcohol, are depressed or cognitively rigid, have maladaptive families, have experienced recent loss, misunderstand death, and know a suicide victim. Teachers can foster suicide resistance by developing teens\u27 cognitive deterrents and encouraging adaptive coping strategies. Recommended assessment tools for potentially suicidal children and teens include the Reasons for Living Inventory and the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire. For teachers, intervention strategies include listening empathically, asking directly about potential suicide, and breaking confidentiality in cases of an actively suicidal child or teenager. Administratively, helpful strategies are hot lines, suicide prevention training modules, and publicity of popular students\u27 adaptive responses to stress such as drug rehabilitation or therapy. After suicide, administrators should work to diminish survivor guilt, minimize scapegoating, and prevent contagion

The Family of Instruments That Assess Suicide Risk

In suicide assessment, Beck\u27s Scale for Suicide Ideation is used widely, though other adult and youth instruments are available. A creative, positive instrument is the Reasons for Living. Advantages of suicide questionnaires include rapid assessment, access to information that may be difficult to obtain by observations and verbal interaction, ease of completion for some, availability of established norms for some instruments, and indirect information provided by questionnaire responding. Disadvantages are the temptation to accept responses uncritically, the possibility that therapists or clients view the questionnaires as superseding the therapeutic relationship, the implication that suicide tendencies are static, and, at times, cost. Overall, sound clinical judgment is paramount when assessing for suicide

Rational Suicide and the Crisis of Terminal Illness - Reply to Lokhandwala and Westefeld

Lokhandwala and Westefeld\u27s article highlighting the ethical dilemma in rational suicide raises the pragmatic question of how one would actually assess a client\u27s situation. A particularly relevant diagnosis that should be ruled out is clinical depression. The DSM-IV lists nine symptoms of major depressive disorder, eight of which could easily be masked as symptoms of the physical illness or side effects of treatment. These symptoms can be grouped into three categories: central features of depression, physical signs of depression, and cognitive signs of depression. All three of these categories, particularly physical signs, could easily be mistaken for medical problems. Reviewing the nine criteria for a diagnosis of clinical depression might be a good way to explore the possibility of clinical depression In a terminally ill person who is supposedly making a rational decision to com?nit suicide