There has been ongoing research into how to improve the delivery of mental health services to members of AIAN communities. Despite the prevalence of mental health symptoms among members of AIAN communities, the APA reports that the use of mental health services among AIANs is low. Sabbioni et al. (2018) used a mental health service model incorporating culturally appropriate strategies and care. Attention to these social context(s) in which people’s experiences of accessing mental health and substance use care emerge is important to identifying the root causes of social suffering, and the impact of structural violence 2,67. According to health care providers, missed appointments were common for many of the clients using their services in a couple of the access sites—substance use, mental illness, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, diabetes, and other co-morbidities intersected with poverty to disrupt the lives of many of the people who accessed services. He did not feel he could endure the stigma he perceived he would encounter if he accessed mental health services, regardless of the symptoms of mental illness he was experiencing at the time.
- Reasons why include difficulties in securing funding, low participation rates and questions around the cultural appropriateness of using Western methodology to measure Indigenous psychology.
- Meta-analysis could not be conducted due to the heterogeneity of the study designs.
- Benefits of Native community mental health workers leading this work included increased cultural awareness and understanding during the intervention, as well as openness/comfort in meeting about this sensitive topic, thereby reducing stigma (Cwik et al., 2016).
- Research that examined how Indigenous residents coped after the 2016 Horse River wildfire revealed the importance of kinship, social and community support, and connection to culture as positive coping mechanisms and factors influencing mental health and well-being .
- The RMWB is located in a northern region within the Canadian province of Alberta and on Treaty 8 Traditional Territory, which encompasses a landmass of approximately 840,000 square kilometres and is home to 39 First Nations communities across the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and the Northwestern Territories.
Method
Additionally, depression is often underdiagnosed among older people regardless of whether they’re members of AIAN communities. Mental health may be conceptualized differently among AIAN communities than as understood in the DSM. The researchers said that this study was the first to provide these statistics, so the numbers may be overestimated due to https://www.bet.com/article/n1rvpe/suicide-and-young-black-men-why-the-brothers-feel-alone limited measurements among AIAN people. AIANs experience more widespread mental health challenges, such as depression, compared to non-Indigenous groups.
Structural modelling of wellbeing for Indigenous Australians: importance of mental health
One final limitation may be that our review lacks more ‘rigorous’ studies, as indicated by the lack of ‘strong’ quality studies. We did not conduct external searches to investigate the studies, unless the article in our review directed readers to another publication to increase information on the protocol. Therefore, our findings cannot be generalized across Indigenous populations in different countries and within the Indigenous populations of a country which is why we have ensured that our review specifies the Indigenous populations and their communities if reported (Supplemental Table S6).
The authors would also like to thank Winta Ghidei and Barbara Verstraeten for providing support with formatting and references and editing of the manuscript. The authors also thank Candace Sturgess for the organization of the forum, and the facilitators who supported roundtable discussions. Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.
In addition, Indigenous populations have endured historical trauma and discrimination, leading to a stigma surrounding mental health issues 44, 87, a lack of trust in mainstream services, and thus challenging access to mental health services . (3) Tertiary mental health services are the highest level of specialised care, typically provided for individuals with severe and complex mental health conditions that often require long-term management and specialised interventions. These Indigenous-focused studies may have different measures of access depending on how utilisation was defined (e.g., for the general or specific mental healthcare) and usually compare the result with the non-Indigenous population 50, 51, 75. To explore factors that reduce access to specialist mental health services in Australia, Amos et al. adopted an access measure as a utilisation-to-population ratio (e.g., annual mental health bed days per 10,000 capita) within a large geographical unit (i.e., Statistical Area Level 3) . Similar access measures were employed in studies that examined the impact of interventions or changes to improve utilisation of a particular mental health provider or a mental healthcare program . On the other hand, our review of the literature shows that nine studies draw on quantitative data to comprehend and depict the patterns of Indigenous individuals’ utilisation of mental health services.
A pilot study of the iPad-based DST demonstrated positive benefits for providers and patients which facilitated discussion around individualized treatment plans. E-learning is an increasingly popular method of education delivery to enable flexible accessibility to standardized materials and improve cost effectiveness . Digital technology can facilitate task shifting through electronic learning (e-learning), electronic screening and decision support tools (DSTs), and continued collaboration and supervision within virtual communities of practice 20, 22. Additionally, the notion that telemental health depersonalized the human connection that is embedded in many Indigenous cultures was raised as a concern.