Browsing by Author "Szeto, Andrew"
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Item Open Access Examining the impact of missing data in an undergraduate mental health survey(2023-08-04) Hews-Girard, Julia; Patten, Scott; Dimitropoulos, Gina; Szeto, Andrew; Thannhauser, Jennifer; Duffy, Anne; Rivera, Daniel; King, NathanItem Open Access Exploring Perceptions, Experiences, Acceptability and Validity of Mental Health Screening and Diagnosis among Undergraduate Students: A mixed methods study(2023-08-04) Hews-Girard, Julia; Patten, Scott; Dimitropoulos, Gina; Szeto, Andrew; Thannhauser, JenniferItem Open Access Influence of Social Support and Work Meaning on Mental Health in Adults Experiencing Mental Illness(2020-01) Waldmann, Kristina; Domene, José; Wada, Kaori; Szeto, AndrewMental illness is a growing public health concern that has been exasperated by the covid-19 pandemic (OECD, 2021). Keyes’ two continua model of mental health conceptualizes the relationship between mental health and mental illness as two separate continuums that intersect with one another. While the two terms are related, they are not analogous and it is possible for someone experiencing mental illness to experience good mental health. Grounded in the two continua model of mental health, the current study posited perceived social support and meaningful work would account for a significant amount of variance in the mental health of those living with mental illness. Participants included 125 working adults (18 – 56 years) who were experiencing mental illness at the time of the study. Participants completed a series of self-report surveys measuring meaningful work, social support and mental health. After controlling for age, gender, and relationship status, hierarchical multiple regressions revealed social support and meaningful work each accounted for a significant amount of unique variance to mental health in adults. These results highlight the importance of incorporating meaningful work and social support into counselling psychology practice, specifically with clients experiencing mental illness, as a potential way to improve mental health.Item Open Access Liar at First Sight? Early Impressions and Interviewer Judgments, Attributions, and False Perceptions of Faking(2017) Wingate, Timothy; Bourdage, Joshua; O'Neill, Thomas; Szeto, Andrew; Meurs, JamesRecent research and theory suggests interviewer characteristics and early impressions might strongly influence later perceptions and judgments of applicant behaviour. In this study, I experimentally investigated the effects of interviewer personality and first impressions of the applicant on later performance judgments, attributions, and perceptions of applicant faking. The sample comprised 247 undergraduate students. Pre-interview qualifications information about the applicant and applicant impression management during the rapport-building stage were manipulated to determine if early information, before the structured question-and-answer stage of the interview, biased interviewers. Findings demonstrated that early impressions altered interviewers’ perceptions and judgments of the applicant. The same applicant, with lower pre- interview qualifications, was judged a worse performer, and perceived as more deceptive in the same videotaped structured stage of the interview. The applicant was also considered less likeable, competent, and dedicated, and more conceited. Conversely, applicant impression management did not have an effect on interviewer impressions and judgments. Interviewer personality also affected perceptions and attributions of the applicant, where more Machiavellian and lower honesty-humility interviewers perceived more faking and made more negative attributions. Interviewer personality, however, did not relate to judgments of applicant fit and suitability. Based on these findings, human resources practitioners are encouraged to exercise caution with information provided to interviewers pre-interview, and researchers are encouraged to suspect interviewer perceptions of faking as symptomatic of interviewer dispositional and early impression biases.Item Embargo Shifting Landscape of College Mental Health: An Exploration of Medicalization, Etiological Belief of Depression, and Help-Seeking among College Students(2024-01-25) Qiao, Qingqi Thomas; Wada, Kaori; Jin, Ling; Drefs, Michelle; Szeto, AndrewIn recent years, college mental health has emerged as a contentious issue. Marked by a consistently high prevalence of mental illness among students and the escalating demand for services, many reports have suggested that college mental health is in crisis. Despite increased efforts to support students, there is little evidence suggesting that the mental health crisis in college campuses is abating. To understand the current landscape of college mental health, we conducted two studies. The first study was a critical review that delineates the process of medicalization and its effect on college mental health crises. We employed the framework of psychiatrization (Beeker et al., 2021) to conceptually unpack the dynamics between top agents (service providers, administrators, and programs) and bottom agents (students) and investigated their roles in the medicalization of college mental health. Our findings suggested that the active participation of both top and bottom agents has created a medicalizing looping effect, reinforcing the college mental health crisis. Our discussion centred on the need to initiate a critical dialogue in such environments. The second study examined how students’ etiological beliefs about depression influence their treatment perceptions and help-seeking intentions. Using an online survey, we collected responses from 201 students from Canada and the USA regarding their etiological beliefs, perceptions about antidepressants and counselling, and help-seeking intentions. The hierarchical regression analyses showed that students who endorsed biological explanations of depression were more likely to see the benefits of antidepressants and less likely to see the risks. Students endorsing psychosocial explanations of depression were more likely to seek help for their suicidal thoughts. Moreover, male students were less likely to see the benefits of antidepressants and more likely to see the risks of counselling than their female counterparts. Students with more depression symptoms were more likely to view counselling as risky and less likely to engage in help-seeking for both emotional problems and suicidal thoughts. Our discussion focused on ways to tailor treatment programs to promote help-seeking in depression. Finally, we discussed ways to improve college counselling and support the mental health needs of college students.Item Open Access Three Essays on Mental Illness at Work(2022-07-20) Dumaisnil, Aidan; Weinhardt, Justin; Turner, Nick; Hershcovis, Sandy; Weatherhead, Julie; Szeto, Andrew; Day, ArlaAlthough there is growing interest in mental health from governmental agencies, employees, and workplaces, Follmer and Jones’ (2018) call for additional research on mental illness suggests that this area of research remains understudied. This dissertation explores mental illness at work in the context of PTSD, leader mental health, and the impact of occupational depression on planning, activation, and performance. After a short overview of mental illness at work, Chapter 2 explores workplace stressors of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) through a systematic review and meta-analysis of 85 studies, finding that workplace job demands, exposure to violence, sexual harassment, bullying, and injury are all positively related to PTSD symptomology. Additional moderator analysis suggests that the measurement of PTSD and employee occupational group affect the relationship between workplace stressors and PTSD symptoms. Chapter 3 investigates leader mental health, providing a comprehensive review of the 33 articles on leader mental health. Folk beliefs of leadership suggest that leaders should have good mental health: they have high job control, are compensated more, enjoy higher socioeconomic status, less bullying, and less injustice. However, despite these positive work aspects, there are organizational factors that would suggest that leaders should suffer from mental health problems, such as increased demands, higher workload and responsibility, work-family and family-work conflict, and the inability to detach from work. This systematic review suggests that leaders are not immune to mental health problems: they experience burnout, stress, depression, anxiety, mental distress, and sleep problems due to a variety of personal and situational factors. Finally, Chapter 4 tests a multilevel model of planning, exploring the impact of occupational depression and interruptions on planning, activation, and performance, where time management planning and contingent planning lead to activation, occupational depression and interruptions moderate those relationships, and activation ultimately leads to performance. Using an experiment combined with experience sampling methods, the results suggest slightly different results at the between-person and within-person levels. However, the consistent finding at both levels was that occupational depression moderates the relationship between time management planning and activation, and between contingent planning and activation.Item Embargo Understanding Men's Responses to Sexual Violence: An Exploration of the Role of Empathy & Moral Disengagement(2023-09-14) McConnell, Ceilidh; Exner-Cortens, Deinera; Jenney, Angelique; Szeto, AndrewSexual violence (SV) in the post-secondary setting in Canada is an ongoing concern with the potential for long-lasting negative mental health outcomes. Therefore, institutions across the country have implemented prevention strategies, many of which include the use of bystander intervention programming. The goal of bystander intervention programming is to provide participants with the skills and education necessary to engage in behaviours that stop and/or prevent SV in the post-secondary setting. But, bystander intervention programming has shown limited success in eliciting intervening behaviour among men specifically. Therefore, there is need to explore novel factors that could be impacting bystander intervention among men in this context to inform improvements to future programming. The present study explored how empathy and moral disengagement might be associated with bystander behaviour, bystander intentions, and bystander self-efficacy among a sample of 205 undergraduate men at a Western Canadian university. The results of this study indicate that empathetic concern component of empathy was positively related to bystander behaviour, bystander intentions, and bystander self-efficacy while moral disengagement was negatively related to bystander intentions and bystander self-efficacy. Further, the empathetic concern component of empathy acted as a protective factor on the negative association between high moral disengagement and bystander intervention behaviours in this sample. These results suggest that future research on bystander intervention program modifications should prioritize understanding how to promote empathetic concern among undergraduate men witnessing SV in the post-secondary setting.Item Open Access Understanding the Mental Health Experiences of Autistic Students in Higher Education: A Mixed Methods Approach(2024-08-06) Williamson, Jennifer; McMorris, Carly; Maroney, Meredith; Szeto, AndrewAbstract Background: Mental health issues like depression and anxiety are a persistent problem among higher education students, especially students on the autism spectrum. The reasons behind autistic students’ high rates of mental health problems remain unclear, with few studies addressing this topic. However, several factors impacting mental health have been identified within autistic adults and non-autistic higher education students separately, such as perceived campus climate, internalized stigma, and camouflaging (attempts to hide one’s autism). Method: In this exploratory mixed methods study, I combined semi-structured interviews and online surveys to investigate factors associated with mental health among a sample of autistic students attending the University of Calgary (UCalgary). Quantitative analyses included collecting descriptive statistics from the survey and running correlations between mental health outcomes (e.g., stress, quality of life) and potential factors (e.g., campus climate, stigma, camouflaging), while qualitative analysis consisted of reflexive thematic analysis of interview data to understand participants’ lived experiences with mental health. Results: Based on 12 surveys and 10 interviews, several key findings emerged. First, participants reported high levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. Second, autism-specific quality of life was negatively correlated with stigma but positively correlated with camouflaging and campus climate; no other correlations between factors and mental health outcomes reached significance, although stigma and camouflaging had a strong negative correlation. Finally, three key themes were developed from the interviews: 1) autistic students have heterogeneous experiences with mental health; 2) mental health is affected by personal autism identity and societal-level messages about autism, including stigma; and 3) the UCalgary environment has both positive (e.g., providing autism-specific supports) and negative (e.g., too much sensory input) influences on mental health. Collectively, these findings support past literature and underscore the need to increase mental health support for autistic students. Conclusions and Impact: These initial findings highlight how a variety of individual and environmental factors contribute to autistic students’ mental health. Addressing these factors can create more inclusive environments at higher education institutions like UCalgary, thus fostering well-being and academic success for autistic and non-autistic students alike.Item Open Access Validating the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) in Undergraduate Students: A mixed methods study(2023-08-04) Hews-Girard, Julia; Patten, Scott; Dimitropoulos, Gina; Szeto, Andrew; Thannhauser, Jennifer; King, Nathan; Duffy, Anne; Cunningham, Simone