Mental health and stigma on campus: Insights from students' lived experience.

The JED Campus framework presents a multi-faceted approach to how colleges and universities can provide quality mental health services to their students and enhance the support of the campus community. However, research has suggested that a significant barrier to students seeking help and utilizing on-campus resources is the fear of stigma associated with mental illness. The current study was interested in learning more from students with mental health diagnoses about their experiences on campus. Focus groups were conducted and topics discussed included stigma, impact of university policies, and how resources could better address student needs. The findings suggest that students feel stigma is a significant barrier in how mental health is addressed on campus and that universities need to be more proactive in their approach to create a safe and inclusive campus for all members of the community.

Breast Cancer Treatment Experiences of Witness Project of Kansas Participants.

BACKGROUND: African American women continue to die at a higher rate than White women from breast cancer. Kansas has a high death rate among African American women. Their voices needed to be heard. OBJECTIVES: This exploratory study will ask the following questions: 1) Were African American and White women having different breast cancer treatment experiences with their health care providers? And 2) How satisfied were they with their treatment? METHOD: A total of 15 breast cancer survivors were recruited to participate in this qualitative research study. We conducted focus groups in two communities in the Midwest. Forty percent of the sample was White women, 53% of the sample was African American women and 7% of the sample was Hispanic/Latina. RESULTS: Overall six themes emerged. Generally both African American women and White women were satisfied with their health care; both felt they were treated equally by health care professionals. However, they felt that health care professionals should pay more attention to their significant others and to continue to educate young women about early detection. CONCLUSIONS: As a result of the focus groups a gap in services emerged in educating the patient's partners about what is needed for their significant others and what role partners play in the recovery process.

College Students Opinions on Gun Violence.

Gun violence and control issues have become serious public health problems. This study gathered the opinions from 419 college students from a Midwestern University. Participants were asked about beliefs about purchasing assault weapons, beliefs about bringing handguns to college campuses and beliefs about contributing factors that lead to gun violence. Participants completed surveys online. The findings showed that overall 54 % of respondents believed that military assault weapons should be banned and 53 % agree that teachers should be allowed to carry a registered handgun on campus. There were statistically significant differences between males and females on these issues. For instance, females believed military assault weapons and high capacity magazines should be banned more than 1.9 times (p = .004) p < .05 compared to male students. On the other hand, female students were more likely to believe that school teachers should be allowed to carry registered handguns on school campuses more than 1.55 times (p = .046) p < .05 compared to their male student counterparts. There were no statistically significant differences between ethnic groups. The top four contributing factors that students believed led to gun violence were decline in parenting and family values (17 %), gang involvement (14 %), bullying (13.8 %) and guns being easy to obtain (13.8 %). Limitations and implications for policy work are discussed.