|
Partners in Research
This is the first in a series of articles about interdisciplinary research at USC.
The stigma that surrounds mental illness is almost as debilitating as the illness itself. Wary of being labeled "crazy," or of being accused of feigning an illness no one can see, people who have a mental illness often don't seek treatment.
Education is critical to erasing this stigma--and improving the lives of millions of people and their families. A team of USC researchers believes the earlier that education is begun, the better. They are conducting research that might lead to the creation of a mental illness curriculum for children, one similar to current anti-drug or fire safety education programs.
Mental illness is any kind of disorder considered to be of a psychiatric nature, such as clinical depression, or schizophrenia.
As a national health problem, it looms large: an estimated one in five Americans a year has some form of mental illness.
In 1995, the South Carolina Department of Mental Health (SCDMH) developed a book for children whose parents have mental illness. Puzzles, Pictures, and Paper Airplanes: What We Do When Our Parents Get Sick is a colorfully illustrated story that aims to teach children that a parent's mental illness is like other kinds of illness, not something caused by the children. The book presents ways to cope, and it stresses to children that they are not alone in having mental illness affect them and their family.
Last year, USC Medical School professor George R. Holmes was asked by SCDMH to test whether the book had any educational value with children. He put together a multidisciplinary team that includes nurses, social workers, psychologists, and school counselors. Kathleen Scharer, USC nursing professor, became chair of the group that would test that theory.
"The idea behind Puzzles, Pictures, and Paper Airplanes is to help children see that people who are mentally ill may behave differently, but they are not 'bad'," said Scharer, co-principal investigator. "How many times have we heard an eccentric person called 'crazy'? Children don't have the life experience needed to interpret or understand such comments.
"The goal of our project is to increase children's knowledge of mental illness and to decrease the stigma toward it. If we find that we can do this, then we want to create a curriculum that can be used in the schools."
Supported by funding from the SCDMH for this first year of the study, and a grant from the Ensor Foundation for the next year, the Puzzles project is in the pilot stage. Data are being collected in several elementary schools using a pre-test/post-test model.
"The project involves going into the public schools and reading the story to fourth graders," Scharer said. "An experimental group hears the story about mental illness, and a control group hears a story about epilepsy."
Research assistant Jennifer Young, a master's-level nursing student, makes three visits to each class. Her visits are a month apart. During her first visit to the experimental class, she reads the story to the children, defines mental illness, and starts a discussion to reinforce the message.
The second time she visits the class, she reads the story again and asks specific discussion questions about the book. The third time, she asks the children what they remember about the book and then engages the children in behavioral rehearsal. Using different scenarios about people with mental illness, the children practice what they could say or do in the various situations.
On each of her visits to the control group, Young reads a story about epilepsy. The lesson plan for each monthly session is the same as for the experimental group, except the content relates to people with epilepsy.
"We want to know what kind of changes the children have in terms of their understanding of mental illness," said Holmes, neuropsychiatry and behavioral science. "The results are measured through a written pre-test, a post-test given after the last reading, and a second post-test given at the very end of the school year.
"If the data demonstrate a significant change in children's knowledge and attitudes about mental illness, then the book will be added to the schools' curriculum.
"This type of preventative information is crucially important, especially for younger children, because they don't understand the cause and effect of mental illness issues," said Holmes, who is also chief of child and adolescent psychology at the William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute. "Hopefully, reading and reinforcing the book will show them that mental illness is like physical illness: you have to go to the doctor and you have to take your medicine."
The ideal way to get that information to children, Scharer believes, would be to create a curriculum that could be presented by the school nurse, for example.
"If we can create something easy to administer and can show that it is worthwhile," Scharer said, "I think it will be adopted very quickly."
|
