A scoping review to map the research on the mental health of students and graduates during their university-to-work transitions.

OBJECTIVES: This scoping review maps the extant literature on students' and graduates' mental health experiences throughout their university-to-work transitions. The current review investigates the methodological features of the studies, the main findings, and the theories that the studies draw on to conceptualise mental health and transitions. DESIGN: This project used a scoping review methodology created and developed by Peters and colleagues and the Joanna Briggs Institute. The review searched academic databases and screened existing studies that met predetermined inclusion criteria. DATA SOURCES: Seven academic databases and Google Scholar were searched with sets of search terms. ELIGIBILITY: The included studies examined participants who were final-year university students or those who had graduated from university within a 3-year period. Studies published in English since 2000 and from any country were included. The review included studies examining the negative dimensions of mental health. The review excluded studies focusing on medical students and graduates. DATA EXTRACTION: Basic information about the studies and their findings on mental health and university-to-work transitions was retrieved. The findings are presented in tables and in a qualitative thematic summary. RESULTS: The scoping review included 12 studies. Mental health was often not explicitly defined and it's theoretical foundations were not clearly articulated. The review identified factors, including a lack of social support and economic precarity, as sources of adverse mental health. Other protective factors in these studies-variables that guard against mental health problems-were identified, such as career preparedness and having a good job. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the methodological focus on the negative aspects of mental health, people's mental health experiences during university-to-work transitions are not uniformly negative. Clear conceptualisations of mental health in future studies will aid in developing resources to improve well-being. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: This scoping review adhered to a protocol previously published in this journal and that is registered on the Open Science Framework website (https://osf.io/gw86x).

'Feel like going crazy': Mental health discourses in an online support group for mothers during COVID-19.

COVID-19 has become a mental health pandemic. The impact on vulnerable demographic groups has been particularly severe. This paper focuses on women in employment in Hong Kong who have had to balance remote work and online schooling for over 2 years. Using semi-ethnography and theme-oriented discourse analysis, we examine 200 threads that concern members' mental health on a popular Facebook support group for mothers. We demonstrate that mental health messages are typically framed as 'troubles talk'. Other support group members actively align with a trouble-teller through 'caring responses', namely expressions of empathy and sympathy. These are realized through assessments of the trouble-teller's experience, reports of similar experiences; expressions of compassion and advice-giving. Mental health talk online is heavily mitigated, nevertheless the medium provides a space for expressing mental health troubles and providing informal psychosocial support. We advocate the importance of microanalytic discourse studies for mental health research to get insights into people's lived experiences during the pandemic.

Mental Health, Discourse and Stigma.

In this editorial to the special collection "Mental Health, Discourse and Stigma" we outline the concepts of mental, health, discourse and stigma as they are examined through sociolinguistic lenses. We examine the sociolinguistic approach to mental health and stigma and discuss the different theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches that have been applied in such contexts. Sociolinguistics views mental health and stigma as discursively constructed and constituted, i.e. they are both manifest, negotiated, reinforced or contested in the language that people use. We highlight existing gaps in sociolinguistic research and outline how it could enrich research in psychology and psychiatry and contribute to professional practice. Specifically, sociolinguistics provides well-established methodological tools to research the 'voices' of people with a history of mental ill health, their family, carers and mental health professionals in both online and off-line contexts. This is vital to develop targeted interventions and to contribute to de-stigmatization of mental health. To conclude, we highlight the importance of transdisciplinary research that brings together expertise in psychology, psychiatry and sociolinguistics.

The relationship between personal and interpersonal mental health experiences and stigma-related outcomes in Hong Kong.

BACKGROUND: Previous research indicates that personal mental health experiences (e.g. one's current mental health status) and interpersonal mental health experiences (e.g. one's familiarity with someone with mental illness) are associated with stigma-related outcomes. These outcomes include knowledge, attitudes and desire for social distance from people with mental illness. AIMS: To explore the extent to which current personal mental health status and familiarity with mental illness predict stigma-related outcomes in Hong Kong. METHOD: Data were drawn from a larger research project examining mental well-being in Hong Kong citizens. Citizens (N = 1010) aged ≥18 years were surveyed between August and September 2021. RESULTS: Multiple regression analyses revealed that immediate family and friends showed better attitudinal outcomes and lower desire for social distance compared with people who did not know anyone with mental illness (all ß > 1.00, all P < 0.05), whereas people with personal experience of mental illness showed higher prejudicial attitudes compared with people who did not know anyone with mental illness (ß = -0.744, P = 0.016). Better current personal mental health predicted lower prejudicial attitudes (ß = 0.488, P < 0.001) and mixed outcomes on different realms of mental health knowledge. CONCLUSIONS: Cultural concerns surrounding 'saving face' and emphasis on collectivistic values may explain the nonlinear relationship between personal and interpersonal mental health experiences and stigma-related outcomes. Future anti-stigma interventions should tailor their approaches to the needs of people with different levels of familiarity with mental illness and include efforts to support the mental health of the overall population.

Elicitation of children's understanding of information in pediatric genetic counseling encounters: A discourse-oriented perspective.

Affirmation of children's understanding of information provided in genetic counseling encounters is crucial to obtaining children's informed consent/assent in pediatric genetic counseling encounters. It is also important for the proper management of a genetic condition. Currently, there is a relative scarcity of research on how understanding of complex genetic information by children is elicited in the process of pediatric genetic counseling. In this study, we apply theme-oriented discourse analysis to examine 23 video/audio-recorded genetic counseling encounters in Hong Kong. The encounters involve children aged between 3 and 17 years old who are suspected to have or diagnosed with Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS). Specifically, we examine a range of communicative strategies that genetic professionals employ to elicit children's understanding of information in this genetic counseling setting. We also examine how children's epistemic status is negotiated between genetic professionals, parents, and children. The study reveals that genetic professionals typically use direct questioning (e.g., "do you understand?" or "do you have any questions?"). Less typical are examples where genetic professionals explore children's epistemic access and invite children to recall information after they deliver it. The study reveals two discourse strategies that genetic professionals and parents employ to justify a child's low epistemic status: (1) construction of "current ignorance" and "future competence" in children and (2) association with a child's character. In the examined counseling encounters, genetic professionals and parents tend to construct a low epistemic status in younger children and allocate the responsibility for understanding relevant information to the parents and the "future" competent children. The study highlights the impact of genetic professionals' and parents' assumptions on children's knowledge and comprehensibility at different ages, and the role that children themselves play in conforming or contesting these assumptions.

'Do language and culture really matter?': A trans-disciplinary investigation of cultural diversity in genetic counseling in Hong Kong.

In this paper, we present evidence that in counseling culturally diverse patients, differences in spoken language and cultural beliefs of the patients and genetic counseling professionals do not necessarily impede successful counseling. We also highlight sociocultural factors, including socioeconomic background and genetic literacy, that may impact communication in multicultural/ multilingual contexts or when languages other than English are used. While genetic counseling is not short of insights and practical guidelines on sociocultural and language issues, and increasingly, research that employs interviews and surveys, empirical research that draws on authentic interactional data (in the form of video- and audio-recorded interactions and their transcripts) is limited. Our goal here is to assess how needs are communicated among a diverse population using an innovative empirical approach that builds on the analysis of transcribed interactions as the primary data and optimizes trans-disciplinary expertise in linguistics, genetics and genetic counseling. We present data from 42 genetic counseling encounters addressing Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS) in Hong Kong. We demonstrate the value of the situated analysis of genetic counseling, which focuses on those junctures in the interaction where participants orient to their different linguistic and/or cultural backgrounds as relevant to the ongoing interaction. We further show that participants draw on various interactional resources to negotiate and resolve possible differences or misunderstandings. We highlight the advantages of incorporating authentic (i.e., non-simulated) data into the training of genetic counselors to increase cultural awareness and to provide communication tools (i.e., interactional strategies) they can draw on in their counseling practice.