Are social factors related to mental health?

Hello all forum members,

I would like to kindly ask you to participate in my survey. The aim of this study is to disentangle the relationship between social factors and mental health by examining their changes and interactions through time.

The survey is available in three languages (English, German, and Indonesian). I hope that by having the survey available in various languages, participants from diverse cultural background will participate. This should help in drawing a more representative conclusion out of the result of the study.

This survey will run repeatedly for a year from 2014 to 2015. This is the first survey. After this first survey, those who provided consent and email addresses will be contacted again in 4 months for another survey. After that, they will be contacted again for two more surveys in 8 and 12 months from now.

The data is anonymous and confidential. I do not collect email addresses, although it will be requested. Entering an email address at the end of the survey will activate a trigger that will send an invitation to your email in 4-, 8-, and 12-months time. After this, the email address will automatically be recoded into the blank. This method allows me to send you invitations to the future surveys without collecting email addresses.

Moreover, you are entitled to withdraw from the study without giving reasons even after completing the survey by contacting us through email. This can be done by giving us your unique participation code, which will be provided at the end of the survey.

If you have around 20-30 minutes, above 18 years old and would like to share your social experiences and mental health, please participate:
http://ww3.unipark.de/uc/int_soc_men1/eng/

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Please repost, tweet, email or share the study.

Contact:
Jap Edo Sebastian Jaya,
Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy (Prof. Tania Lincoln)
Institute of Psychology
Faculty of Psychology & Human Movement Science
Universität Hamburg
jap.edo.sebastian.jaya@studium.uni-hamburg.de

Forums: Schizophrenia Forum, Bullying Forum and Child Abuse Forum
Deadline: 31st December 2014

Well, i wish there was money in this ..but because i luv talkin about the subject so much, and becuase i have lived with schizophrenia for fifteen years and am a survivor of the disease i will gladly indulge myself into this subject. To untangle the realationship between social factors and mental health..my pleasure. Ok, so social factors have a lot to do with mental health when it comes to schizophrenia in my experience. This is because we are made to interact with people...somtimes on levels that shallow people , or people of shallow thinking are not able to comprehend completely. At eighteen i was diagnosed with schizophrenia after losing a leg in a motorcycle accident that most likely triggered the underlying disease. After fifteen years , i can say people have at sometimes defeated my recovery, and other people at other times have aided my recovery. I have always somehow been rooted in gods love,,,christ..it has been the point of every dillusion, hallucination, voice..or comprehension of my illness. It was always like i did not even ask for this, just like a magnet i was drawn to salvation, and so never lost my sense of curiosity, or drive, and determination to keep searching for answers in this crazy world. That i believe was the catapult that luanched my journey to recovery from schizophrenia. The first person i would mention in the disintanglement of mental illness from social factors is my Dad. He is a highly brilliant person...probably with schizophrenic , and bipolar tendencies himself. He still is very cable of living in the present society with high social skills,,cabable abilities, and apptitudes toward being highly succesfull..as far as work, and relationships go. My Dad, when i was first diaganosed with the illness must have seen it was not going to disapear. He ingraned into me his own creative dillusions that he thought would help me live out my life as a dillusional schizophrenic. For two years after the diaganoses of my disease i did just that ,,i lived in a dillusional world that helped me live on my own, work, have healthy relationships, and this at half way across the country from where any family members that i had no interpersonal contact with for a year. They were in F.L...i lived in N.M. for a year on my own..in my own little dillusional reality that seemed to make me a functionaly member or society. At a young age i was tested by a third grade teacher who thought i might be gifted. I scored a high average on the iq test. I was always so involved in the social aspects of school until i hit puberty. I would make a game out popularity....and girlfriends..and friends..that i always seemed to win at. That was my game. After puberty at fifteen i started to lose any sense of center. That was the first time i prayed to god sincerely ..asking for help. He didnt help me for about fifteen years...what a long journey it has been my brother. After leaving the place i started in ninthe grade...so distracted with my new anxieties...so that i focused on studing so much to where i made straigh A's for a few semesters....i moved to a small town called Highlands N.C.. It was a complete culture shock living in such a small town. It was my Dads decision.As i look back i was always ashamed and deppressed at that period...but now with the maturity iv grown to have i look up to myself and what i did in that time period. The apathy i felt along with the social anxiety as i tried for three years to get past ninthe grade...twice at one shcool...suspened for smoking..than again at another down the road at the next close little town was tormenting. I finally quit shcool witch i had no interest in as far as graded or even learning. I went to school simply becuase that is all i knew to do. A rebel ,,very rebeliuos one at that time. I went to school more to make a statement about how i did not aggree with anything ,more then anything else. I started working. With out me understanding or even really noticing my life and persona took on a whole different turn. I was a great worker ..with great work ethics. Esteemed highly by my employer, and the other people i worked with. I had found an out let at seventeen. I saved money better then the weathered accountant. After this the story get's a little gruesome. I left N.C. on a motorcyle i had bought for six hundred dollars. Long story short i ended getting in a motorcyle accident and lost a leg..hence the trigger that awakened my shizophrenia. Back to the subject...I was highly active, productive, social, ambitious till ninthe grade..after that i became an outcast..nobody understood me, even though it was not hard to make aqqaintences in the small town of N.C where i lived for two years. After that is was just trying to figure out a puzzle. It combined..people who cared and helped. Somtimes in a futile effort. Suicicde attempts. Social isolization. People who inspired me along the way to become the person i am now, even though they probably dont even know it. And i finally came to the end, or the beginning, how ever you want to look at it, where people are all i live for now. My ambition in life is to be a real person to real people, and decent person. Thats what i live for now..is connections with the common person. I believe life is about learning how to love people the way jesus loved them, and my only goal in life is to make it heaven. After all i have been through i do know that is much easier said then done...hence my only goal is that. Hope this helps. Peace..!!!

Thank you freefee for your response!

It is always helpful for me as a researcher to get to know the story behind the statistical numbers.

The research was conducted because the relationship of schizophrenia and social factors is being questioned. Some people are not sure whether social factors have an influence to the symptoms. Therefore, this study was conducted.

I don't think anyone seriously needs a study to answer this?

Am an unemployed totally isolated alcoholic loner in abject poverty. I can tell you, it gets you down.

Thanks for your comment!

The relationship maybe obvious to many people. But there are people who questions this.
One line of thought is that perhaps genetic factors play a stronger causal role than social factors. And that social factors were more of a consequence of mental health problems.

This study partly aims to answer the chicken and egg question, which comes first? Is it that social factors trigger mental health problems? Or, is it that social factors are the outcome of mental health problems?
That is why the study has to be longitudinal.

cumulusjames wrote:I don't think anyone seriously needs a study to answer this?

Am an unemployed totally isolated alcoholic loner in abject poverty. I can tell you, it gets you down.

cumulusjames wrote:I don't think anyone seriously needs a study to answer this?

Am an unemployed totally isolated alcoholic loner in abject poverty. I can tell you, it gets you down.

I'm pretty much in the same position. It really bites.

On the topic, I think that having honest, caring people around really helps mental health.

Many times people have told me weird things or what seems to be obvious lies, but I can't prove it is a lie. It makes my head spin and I go off into never never land.

Maybe it is my illness or maybe I have never met a truly open honest person in my life. I feel like if I could make a good friend of an open and honest person my life would instantly transform. I'm just not sure if any people like that exists in my world.

Hang in there guys, Im a loner, and always poor it seems. Open and honest people DO exist. My brother is one of them. I agree that having loving people around does help. Wish I had some advice to give.

the survey? Yes social concerns and society affect the mentally ill, and in my opinion everyone else on this planet.


thanks, onzellO/

There is a reason schizophrenics isolate. Here is an example of the broken system. The illness is criminalized to get "help". Here a trained psychologist exacerbates his son illness to get him "help" His crime was wearing a tinfoil hat and based on the exaggerated stigma that it is an illness of violence when none of the diagnostic criteria mentions this and all the studies find no correlations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-zkIaX4czE

Peoples belief it is an illness that involves violence, along with the exaggerated belief that a hospital can fix the illness leads to people with mental illness being criminalized by their families and the system. It is very unfortunate and tantamount to people giving diabetics sugar to get them in the hospital to treat their insulin deficiency. This will greatly reduce the lifespan of the diabetic. I have many other examples of this negative feedback loop which encourages what the mentality ill are struggling with and does them a great disservice.

jen06192 years ago
I don't understand why people are calling him crazy. He makes sense to me. He's complaining about a businessman in Charlotte who was the owner of a sports arena, who didn't want solar panels and ice in the arena. Dave opposed him and complained at town hall, so the owner harassed him with a helicopter over his house because the owner didn't want to lose money by paying for the panels and extra seats, etc. No one should be harassed by helicopters over their house - it is annoying. So, he's sane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA1hyqA6UTY

The above comment before the video is an interpretation of what he was talking about. This is a schizophrenic man participating in a town hall meeting. The police do keep tabs on schizophrenics and they know helicopters bother them. Partly because schizophrenia's onset is usually also starts by a sound that is similar to a helicopter. It is the GABAercgic neurons failing and this sound hallucination is the result, people who withdraw from benzos experience this. Anyway, helicopters are a treat for the police, who when getting to ###$ around in them find excuses to use them longer or get their kicks while out. The fact his FOIA request was blacked out gives enough suspicion that his participation at the town hall was enough to get him on the radar of the local police and some harassment. They know where he lives and decided why not. The poster is also a programmer for helicopter software(could be coincidence) and I have my own problems to think about. Point is, I believe him, but he is ill and therefore should be mocked publicly for whatever is actually happening to him. Pretty sad but true state of things and a indicator of the social environment that makes recovery impossible.