About this Research Topic
The prevalence of mental disorders, and their most dramatic extreme, suicide, is growing at an alarming rate. Even developed countries are experiencing a collapse in their general and mental health services, with care, as it has been known up to the present, becoming increasingly important. It is a problem difficult to solve at the moment. For this reason, in recent years, experiences have been developed in different countries in terms of training volunteer health promoters, coordinated by professionals, who work in different areas in terms of early detection, providing support and implementing activities that promote wellbeing. These experiences have in common the fact that they consider people not so much as patients or users, but as agents with the capacity to participate and with the need to acquire and transmit control over their health.
The aim is to showcase a collection of research articles that report results of the benefits of various actions in which the promotion of mental health becomes a concern of the individual and the community.
It is encouraged to present studies reflecting which actions have contributed to create environments and conditions that to make it easier to people to adopt and maintain healthy lifestyles (in the workplace, education, community, etc.), as well as to detect possible signs that go unnoticed or do not reach the health professionals of the organization or the community. The dissemination of these experiences, specifying the methodology used to facilitate their replication, is particularly important, since health promotion, without forgetting care and prevention, is more effective in the medium and long term, assuming lower costs and facilitating the inclusion of a greater number of beneficiaries.
The experiences included in this collection should describe health promotion actions, training agents for the observation, care, support and accompaniment of people in whom signs of possible discomfort are detected, offering information, referring those affected to professional services and establishing follow-ups over time, with the support of TICs that make it possible to check whether the benefits are maintained.
The fields of action range from 1) the work organizations themselves (work stress, harassment, burnout and other disorders), 2) educational environments (favoring respectful spaces where bullying has no place, thanks to the training of teachers, counsellors and members of the educational community), 3) voluntary and educational organizations of older people, who are in turn connected with other people of their age who live in loneliness or suffer from chronic pathologies and present a higher risk of depression; or 4) media professionals who are committed to making the reality of mental health visible openly and without taboos.
The aim is to showcase a collection of research articles that report results of the benefits of various actions in which the promotion of mental health becomes a concern of the individual and the community.
It is encouraged to present studies reflecting which actions have contributed to create environments and conditions that to make it easier to people to adopt and maintain healthy lifestyles (in the workplace, education, community, etc.), as well as to detect possible signs that go unnoticed or do not reach the health professionals of the organization or the community. The dissemination of these experiences, specifying the methodology used to facilitate their replication, is particularly important, since health promotion, without forgetting care and prevention, is more effective in the medium and long term, assuming lower costs and facilitating the inclusion of a greater number of beneficiaries.
The experiences included in this collection should describe health promotion actions, training agents for the observation, care, support and accompaniment of people in whom signs of possible discomfort are detected, offering information, referring those affected to professional services and establishing follow-ups over time, with the support of TICs that make it possible to check whether the benefits are maintained.
The fields of action range from 1) the work organizations themselves (work stress, harassment, burnout and other disorders), 2) educational environments (favoring respectful spaces where bullying has no place, thanks to the training of teachers, counsellors and members of the educational community), 3) voluntary and educational organizations of older people, who are in turn connected with other people of their age who live in loneliness or suffer from chronic pathologies and present a higher risk of depression; or 4) media professionals who are committed to making the reality of mental health visible openly and without taboos.
Keywords: Mental Health, Promotion, Suicide, Prevention, Mental Health Care
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