Related sites:
Children's Mental Health Facts
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Anxious Widows and Mothers
Two of the most vulnerable populations that encounter anxiety are widows and widowers, as well as middle aged women that have a lot to juggle. The population of people that lose loved ones can be combated by providing additional and extended bereavement counseling, while the middle aged women can possibly be helped by support groups and education.
There are two major vulnerable populations that suffer from anxiety disorders. They include people that have lost a spouse or significant other and middle aged women with families. There are reasons for why these populations are affected by anxiety more readily than other populations. Widowers and widows go through an awful time when they lose the love of their life. This creates an internal uneasiness, and therefore can manifest into some sort of anxiety. Most middle aged women have a lot to juggle and take care of. Also, middle aged women are going through many different changes with themselves as well as with the people around them. Howel, L (200). There are ways in which these populations can be targeted in an effort to try and decrease anxiety disorders and issues. Kroenke, K., Spitzer, R., Williams, J., Monahan, P., & Lowe, B. (2007), Anxiety disorders association of America. Onrust, S (2006), Aging and Mental Health.
In order to decrease anxiety in widows and widowers it is the policy of Hospice to provide bereavement counseling in the year after their loved ones death. This policy will be supported and kept running by the organization of Hospice. Families that use Hospice as a means of health care for their sick loved ones will most likely support this policy. However, there will be people that oppose to this policy. They will include people that lose a loved one and are not a part of Hospice. There are many people that lose loved ones everyday and do not have the benefit of being counseled and consoled by an organization. This policy will be one that will be a benefit of using Hospice and maybe push more people to use the organization.
Bereavement counseling provides hope for people. Cutcliffe, J (2004). If a person that suffers from anxiety has a new found hope, their anxiety could possibly be minimized. Bereavement has both phases and stages, and there is literature that hope is considered a holistic phenomenon. Cutcliffe, J (2004). It has been proven that bereavement counseling can provide medical and emotional supports that help people cope with the loss of a loved one. Traumatic grieving can cause serious psychological and physical problems in the later parts of their life. Lorenz, L (1998). Hopefully, bereavement counseling will allow less and less traumatic grieving for individuals.
This policy posses quality, access to care, and fairness. The quality of the bereavement counseling will be good because it will be run by trained professionals. The counseling will be easy for people to access because it will be held at a general location, and the people that are utilizing it will be familiar with the area. The policy of bereavement will defiantly be fair because it will be provided for up to one year after a love one is lost. This will allow the widow or widower time to recover and hopefully gain enough hope to decrease their anxiety over the loss of their loved one.
In order to accomplish reduced amounts of anxiety in middle aged women, it is the policy of the school district to provide support groups and education for mothers that have children in the school. This policy will be funded by the school district and its tax payers. Upon educating middle aged women that have children in school, hopefully they will be less likely to suffer from the anticipated anxiety of women in the population. During the education sessions hopefully the mothers will learn where their anxiety may stem from and this will allow them to combat their problem in a better manor. Many mothers will support this policy because it will benefit them. However, there may be people in the town that pay taxes that will not support this policy because they are not benefiting from it. In the long run, this policy will help the community overall, by reducing anxiety of the women that live in the community.
It is believed that education and the proper therapy and techniques could possibly reduce anxiety in these women that suffer from the disorder. Patients that suffer from anxiety have shown improvements with “education and consultative effort”. Bodlund, O., Andersson, S., & Mallon, L. (1998). The education aspect of this could be that the school could host certain nights where mothers are invited to the school to learn about anxieties, from trained professionals, that they may encounter and are somewhat normal for them. The consultative efforts would be the help that the suffering mothers may receive from these sessions. Also, the support of other women feeling the same way could possibly aid in how certain women feel about their own problems.
The quality of this policy is very good. Women will be surrounded by other people that feel the same way as they do, and this will allow them to feel better about their own problem, as well as not feel alone. There will also be ways for the women to get educated on what is truly going on and in turn this will hopefully allow them to combat the different anxieties. The access to this care would be very easy. The sessions and education would be offered right at the local school. People may have a slight problem with the fairness of this. Because, everyone would have to contribute to funding this policy, but not everyone would use it, some may think it is not fair. Also, the support group would mainly be for women because they are the vulnerable population. This could also be something that could create a fairness issue.
Written by Erin Crann
Anxiety Related Sites:
Anxiety Definitions/Support/Help
Anxiety in Children
Many adults have a hard time believing that their children could be suffering from the same anxiety issues that they suffer from. This is a very true reality.
Stressful events such as the first day of school, moving to a new town, loss of a parent, or the divorcing of parents can trigger anxiety in children and teenagers.
Research has studied the affect of anxiety on children’s performance in the classroom, and socialization with other children their age. These children have shown to be more vulnerable to substance abuse and verbal abuse from peers.
Though kids can suffer from the same disorders as adults, there are more common disorders in childhood. Separation Anxiety and specific phobias are very common in kids 6 to 9 years old. Generalized anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder are more common in middle childhood to adolescence.
Children are much harder to treat for anxiety than adults because doctors have a hard time determining whether the child is experiencing a “phase” or an actual disorder.
Written by Katie Taylor