The association between stigmatizing attitudes towards depression and help seeking attitudes in college students

Depression stigma has been considered a significant barrier to treatment and rehabilitation. This study aimed to understand the effects of gender, previous mental health care, and symptomatology on depression stigma and analyze the impact of depression stigma on help-seeking attitudes. A total of 969 students with a mean age of 18.87 (SD = 1.49) were included in this study and completed the Depression Stigma Scale, the Attitude Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help, the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 questionnaire, and a socio-demographic questionnaire. We analyzed data using SPSS 24.0, with a 95% confidence interval. Participants came from all University schools, and 64.6% were women. Personal stigma and help-seeking attitudes were affected by gender (β(male) = 5.65, CI = 4.07, 7.25) and previous access to mental healthcare services (β(previous help) = -4.35, CI = -5.89, -2.82). Perceived depression stigma was affected gender (β(male) = -2.67, CI = -5.00, -0.34) and symptomatology (β(no symptomatology) = -3.29, CI = -6.09, -0.49). Personal (r = -0.42, p<0.01) and perceived (r = 0.10, p<0.01) depression stigma correlated with help-seeking attitudes, but we detected no direct symptomatology effect on help-seeking attitudes. Personal depression stigma significantly affected help-seeking attitudes (β = -0.15, CI = -0.17, -0.12). Promoting literacy may decrease personal depression stigma and increase professional help-seeking attitudes and behaviors. © 2022 Conceição et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.This study was funded by the Center for Psychology at the University of Porto, Portuguese Science Foundation CPUP FCT (grant number UIDB/00050/2020) awarded to IR

Effects of a stigma reduction intervention on help-seeking behaviors in university students: A 2019-2021 randomized controlled trial

"Introduction Stigma is one of the most frequently identified help-seeking barriers, but there is a lack of research on the effects of stigma reduction interventions on actual mental health help-seeking behaviors during crucial academic years. This research explores the effects of stigma on university students' mental health care help-seeking behaviors before and during the pandemic. Methods A randomized control trial spanned from 2019 to 2021 at the University of Porto, along five evaluation moments, with students into one control group and two intervention groups—the interventions aimed to reduce depression stigma. Results Among the 702 participants (mean age 18.87, 59.4 % female), the intervention groups significantly increased help-seeking behaviors. In 2020, the intervention groups, having reduced stigma, continued to demonstrate to be more prompt to seek mental health help. In 2021, 22 months, the effects of the intervention on help-seeking were no longer significant; however, participants in the intervention groups showed less severe symptomatology. Conclusion Stigma reduction interventions have a pronounced effect on enhancing help-seeking behaviors among university students, even during times of crisis. This study advocates for prioritizing stigma reduction in academic settings, highlighting its value in promoting mental health access during crucial academic and life challenges."Through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, IP, national funds finance this work under UIDB / 04750/2020. The sponsor had no role in the study design, in the data collection, interpretation of data, writing of the report, or in the decision to submit the paper for publication

Finite element mesh generator: GMALHA

The mesh generator GMALHA was developed for the construction of non-structured triangular meshes used in sea wave propagation finite element models. For a given coastal zone delimited by a boundary line and characterised by its bathymetry, GMALHA generates an optimal triangular mesh. The boundary, which sometimes can be very complex, includes a coastline with port infrastructures, beaches, marinas, islands, etc. . . Based on that boundary and bathymetric information within it, GMALHA, first generates a rough triangular mesh that fills the domain. The mesh is then subjected to post-processing, such as: local refinement and optimization (control of elements uniformity, repositioning of points to correct angles and edge swaps to correct node valence). This paper describes the generation, refinement and optimization algorithms of GMALHA. The advantages of this generator are also illustrated with some practical cases of sea wave propagation in coastal areas.Peer Reviewe

Searching for olive mill waste water (OMWW) solutions: is there a potential on microalgae treatment?

Olive Mill Waste Water (OMWW) is the principal industry extraction residue of olive oil and still one of the most serious environmental problems [1]. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability growth of Chlorella vulgaris under different OMWW concentrations and assess its phenolic content variations to get OMWW toxicity reduction

Práticas e comportamentos de liderança na gestão dos recursos humanos escolares

Num mundo globalizado e complexo em que o capital humano assume centralidade em temáticas associadas à liderança das organizações escolares e consequente Gestão de Recursos Humanos, urge perceber que perceções têm os liderados, pessoal docente e não docente, acerca das práticas e comportamentos da liderança do Diretor escolar. Esta pesquisa de natureza mista, privilegiou como estratégia metodológica o estudo de caso, incidindo sobre uma Escola Básica dos 2º e 3º Ciclos da Região Autónoma da Madeira. Foi administrado, ao pessoal docente e não docente da escola, o questionário LPI - Observer (Leadership Practice Inventory) de Kouzes e Posner. A análise de conteúdo recaiu sobre o Projecto Educativo de Escola e o Plano Anual de Escola. Concluíu-se que, na opinião dos inquiridos, as práticas de liderança que deverão ser privilegiadas por um líder eficaz são “Permitir que os outros ajam” e “Encorajar a vontade”

Algorithms for the multi-objective vehicle routing problem with hard time windows and stochastic travel time and service time

This paper introduces a multi-objective vehicle routing problem with hard time windows and stochastic travel and service times. This problem has two practical objectives: minimizing the operational costs, and maximizing the service level. These objectives are usually conflicting. Thus, we follow a multi-objective approach, aiming to compute a set of Pareto-optimal alternatives with different trade-offs for a decision maker to choose from. We propose two algorithms (a Multi-Objective Memetic Algorithm and a Multi-Objective Iterated Local Search) and compare them to an evolutionary multi-objective optimizer from the literature. We also propose a modified statistical method for the service level calculation. Experiments based on an adapted version of the 56 Solomon instances demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms

Depression and anxiety consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal cohort study with university students

Introduction. For young people, just as in the general population, COVID-19 caused many changes in their lives. The literature review has shown an increased risk for mental illness symptoms as a consequence of the pandemic. Objectives. With this study, we aimed to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic in university students’ anxiety and depression symptoms. Methods. This study is part of a larger longitudinal research on university students’ mental health with the Portuguese version of The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and the Portuguese version of the Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) data with evaluations on January, May and October 2019 and June 2020, as well as socio-demographic information. Results. 341 university students (257 females and 84 males) were included in this study, with a mean age of 19.91 (SD=1.58). In June 2020, the mean for perceived well-being loss was 60.47% (SD=26.56) and 59.54% (SD=28.95) for mental health loss. In the PHQ-9, the proportion of students with scores equal or above 15 ranged between 22.6% and 25.5% in 2019, however, in June 2020, the proportion was significantly higher (37.0%). The proportion of GAD-7 scores above the cut-off 10 ranged between 46.0% and 47.8% in 2019, and, in 2020, 64.5% of the students scored 10 or above. Compared with preceding trends, PHQ-9 scores were 3.11 (CI=2.40-3.83) higher than expected, and GAD-7 scores were 3.56 (CI=2.75-5.37) higher. Conclusions. COVID-19 had a negative impact on depressive and anxiety symptoms in university students, in line with the literature and confirming the vulnerability of young people in such uncertain times

Conhecimento dos serviços da FCCN junto da comunidade científica e tecnológica nacional: um inquérito por questionário

O relatório aqui apresentado resulta de uma prestação de serviços, por parte de uma equipa do ISCTE-IUL, à FCCN (Fundação para a Computação Científica Nacional). Esta visou apoiar o lançamento de um inquérito por questionário aos membros da comunidade científica e tecnológica nacional, com o fim de aferir a perceção acerca dos serviços da FCCN, designadamente em termos de Conectividade, Computação, Colaboração, Conhecimento e Segurança.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio