A scoping review of resilience among transition-age youth with serious mental illness: tensions, knowledge gaps, and future directions.

INTRODUCTION: The study of resilience among transition-age youth (aged 16-29 years) living with serious mental illness (SMI) has provided a promising new direction for research with the capacity to explore individuals' strengths and resources. However, variability in how resilience is defined and measured has led to a lack of conceptual clarity. A comprehensive synthesis is needed to understand current trends and gaps in resilience research among this population. The purpose of the current study was to map how resilience has been conceptualized and operationalized among transition-age youth with SMI, explore resilience factors and outcomes that have been studied, and recommend areas for future research. METHODS: A six-stage scoping review methodology was used to systematically identify relevant empirical literature across multiple databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, AMED, CINAHL, Scopus), addressing transition-age youth diagnosed with SMI and resilience. Topic consultation and reaction meetings were conducted to gather feedback from transition-age youth with SMI, researchers, and clinicians during the review process to enhance the applicability of the review findings. A meta-narrative approach was used to organize included studies into research traditions (i.e., paradigms of inquiry with similar storylines, theoretical and methodological orientations). Resilience factors and outcomes, and the consultative meetings, were analyzed using content analysis. RESULTS: Twenty-four studies met inclusion criteria (14 quantitative, 9 qualitative, 1 mixed-method). Four research traditions were identified, each contributing a unique storyline which conceptualized and operationalized resilience in slightly different ways: Stress Adaptation, Person-Environment Interactions, Recovery-Focused, and Critical and Cultural Perspectives. Resilience factors and outcomes were most commonly evaluated at the individual-level or within the immediate environment (e.g., personal characteristics, social support networks). Limited research has explored the influence of macro-level systems and health inequalities on resilience processes. Results from the consultative meetings further demonstrated the importance of health services and sociocultural factors in shaping processes of resilience among youth. CONCLUSION: The present results may be used to inform future work, as well as the development of age-appropriate, strengths-based, and resilience-oriented approaches to service delivery. Interdisciplinary and intersectional research that prioritizes community and youth engagement is needed to advance current understandings of resilience among transition-age youth with SMI.

The Stride program: Feasibility and pre-to-post program change of an exercise service for university students experiencing mental distress.

Rates of mental illness are disproportionately high for young adult and higher education (e.g., university student) populations. As such, universities and tertiary institutions often devote significant efforts to services and programs that support and treat mental illness and/or mental distress. However, within that portfolio of treatment approaches, structured exercise has been relatively underutilised and greater research attention is needed to develop this evidence base. The Stride program is a structured 12-week exercise service for students experiencing mental distress. We aimed to explore the feasibility of the program and assess pre- and post-program change, through assessments of student health, lifestyle, and wellbeing outcomes. Drawing from feasibility and effectiveness-implementation hybrid design literatures, we conducted a non-randomised feasibility trial of the Stride program. Participants were recruited from the Stride program (N = 114, Mage = 24.21 years). Feasibility results indicated the program was perceived as acceptable and that participants reported positive perceptions of program components, personnel, and sessions. Participants' pre-to-post program change in depressive symptomatology, physical activity levels, mental health-related quality of life, and various behavioural outcomes were found to be desirable. Our results provide support for the feasibility of the Stride program, and more broadly for the delivery and potential effectiveness of structured exercise programs to support university students experiencing mental distress.

Understanding resilience among transition-age youth with serious mental illness: protocol for a scoping review.

INTRODUCTION: Transition-age youth (16-29 years old) are disproportionately affected by the onset, impact and burden of serious mental illness (SMI; for example, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia spectrum disorders). Emerging evidence has increasingly highlighted the concept of resilience in mental health promotion and treatment approaches for this population. A comprehensive synthesis of existing evidence is needed to enhance conceptual clarity in this area, identify knowledge gaps, and inform future research and practice. As such, the present scoping review is guided by the following questions: How has resilience been conceptualised and operationalised in the transition-age youth mental health literature? What factors influence resilience among transition-age youth with SMI, and what outcomes have been studied within the context of transition-age youth's mental health recovery? METHODS AND ANALYSIS: The present protocol will follow six key stages, in accordance with Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) established scoping review methodology and recent iterations of this framework, and has been registered with Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/rzfc5). The protocol and review process will be carried out by a multidisciplinary team in consultation with community stakeholders. A comprehensive search strategy will be conducted across multiple electronic databases to identify relevant empirical literature. Included sources will address the population of transition-age youth (16-29 years) diagnosed with SMI, the concept of resilience (in any context) and will report original research written in English. Data screening and extraction will be completed by at least two independent reviewers. Following meta-narrative review and qualitative content analyses, findings will be synthesised as a descriptive overview with tabular and graphical summaries. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: University of Toronto Health Sciences Research Ethics Board approval was obtained to complete the community stakeholder consultation stage of this review. Results will be disseminated through conference presentations, publications, and user-friendly reports and graphics.

Associations among physical activity tracking, physical activity motivation and level of physical activity in young adults.

Whether physical activity (PA) tracking devices are associated with PA motivation in young adults is largely unknown. We compared total PA minutes per week, total minutes walking/week, meeting moderate-to vigorous PA guidelines, and past-year activity tracking across motivation cluster profiles among 799 young adults. Participants with "self-determined" profiles reported the highest total PA minutes/week followed by participants with "low intrinsic," "controlled self-determined," and "high external" profiles. A behavior regulation profile X activity tracking frequency interaction was not significant. Behavior regulation profiles may need to be considered in PA interventions using activity trackers.

#quarantine15: A content analysis of Instagram posts during COVID-19.

There has been a surge in "quarantine15" social media posts during the self-isolation and lockdowns associated with the COVID-19 global pandemic. Given the influence of other body and weight-centered social media content (e.g., Fitspiration, Fatspiration) on body image and weight stigmatizing thoughts and attitudes, characterizing the features of quarantine15 content is an imperative first step towards understanding its impact on those who view it. Therefore, the present study is a content analysis of quarantine15 content on Instagram. A total of 668 posts were sampled using the hashtag quarantine15, and systematically analyzed for features related to positive and negative body image, as well as weight stigma. The results showed that the posts containing human figures (57.5 %) showcased individuals who were perceived as lower-weight (88.8 %), White (70.3 %), and women (87 %). Approximately one-third (34.4 %) of the images containing individuals were considered objectifying. Posts also perpetuated the controllability of weight through diet (51.5 %) and physical activity (27.5 %), while 46.9 % expressed dislike towards higher-weight bodies. Future experimental research in this area will be important for understanding both the acute and long-term effects of viewing quarantine15 content on body image, weight stigmatizing attitudes and thoughts, and internalized weight stigma.

Barbie's new look: Exploring cognitive body representation among female children and adolescents.

The original Barbie doll's unrealistic body shape can negatively affect young girls' body image. Mattel produced new Barbie dolls with "tall", "curvy", and "petite" body types, yet how girls perceive and evaluate the three new Barbie body types remains unknown. This study investigated whether young girls engage in an automatic "self-other matching" process when viewing the different Barbie doll representations. Female children and adolescents (N = 38; Mage = 10; 6-14 years old; SD = 2.24 years) completed a body-part compatibility task to provide an index of how they implicitly relate cognitive representations of their own body to the different doll images. Significant (p < .05) body-part compatibility effects emerged for the original, curvy and petite dolls, but not for the tall Barbie. These findings indicate that girls engage in a self-other body matching process when viewing Barbie, but that the strength of this matching is influenced by the doll's body type. Results provide new evidence on the underlying cognitive mechanisms that occur when girls are exposed to physique-salient toys, and may have implications for young girls' body image development and use of appearance-based social comparisons.