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Objectives. To examine: 1) whether a single brief pre-clinic educational session improved the wellbeing and quality of life of individuals entering the wait-list for a tertiary chronic pain (CP) service; and 2) the impact of waiting for services on these outcomes. Methods. Participants were 346 adults, with basic English skills and non-urgent triage codes, who were recruited on referral to a tertiary Australian metropolitan CP unit. Participants were randomized across two conditions: "treatment as usual" (normal wait-list) and "experimental" (normal wait-list plus a 3-hour CP educational session). The educational session encouraged self-management and life engagement despite pain. Multiple outcomes (pain acceptance, pain-related interference, psychological distress, health care utilization [frequency, types], quality of life, health knowledge/beliefs), as well as pain severity and symptom exaggeration, were assessed at intake and again at 2 weeks and 6 months post-educational session (or equivalent for the wait-list group). Results. Satisfaction with the educational session was moderate-to-high, but attendance was not associated with improved outcomes. At 2 weeks, all study participants reported significant improvements in pain acceptance (willingness, overall acceptance), health care utilization (frequency) and quality of life (physical), which were maintained/ enhanced at 6 months. Use of psychological and physical therapies increased significantly by 6 months. There was no functional deterioration while wait-listed. Conclusions. Attending a brief pre-clinic education session did not improve function. There was no deterioration in wait-listed participants who agreed to be involved in research and who completed study measures at 2 and 6 months, but referral was associated with short-term functional improvements. This is the first study to link positive change with referral to, rather than treatment by, a tertiary CP service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aimed to explore how refugee people utilised their coping resources and strategies to find meaning in their past and present experiences. Using an experience-centred narrative approach, we analysed the stories of 24 former refugees from two African countries resettled in South Australia. Data analysis revealed altruism and helping behaviour as a prominent and recurring theme of participants' narrated lives. This meta-theme encompassed four subthemes: (a) surviving war and exile, (b) adapting to Australian society, (c) reaching back home, and (d) meaning making through religious beliefs. Helping, cooperating, and sharing were entwined with participants' coping strategies and meaning making of experience. Participants' socio-historical, cultural, and religious context influenced the interpretations of their experiences. Taken together, our findings identified a counter narrative in refugee mental health research beyond trauma and psychopathology. Specifically, we have shown that when the refugee experience is also accompanied by situational contingencies such as receiving help and being called upon to help, together with evaluations such as empathy, identification with suffering, and gratitude, people can be motivated to help others. Future research is needed to explore how altruism and helping behaviour can promote healing from trauma, alleviate distress of separation, and ameliorate acculturation stress among diverse refugee populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The negative psychological impacts of working with traumatised people are well documented and include vicarious traumatisation (VT): the cumulative effect of identifying with clients' trauma stories that negatively impacts on service providers' memory, emotions, thoughts, and worldviews. More recently, the concept of vicarious resilience (VR) has been also identified: the strength, growth, and empowerment experienced by trauma workers as a consequence of their work. VR includes service providers' awareness and appreciation of their clients' capacity to grow, maintaining hope for change, as well as learning from and reassessing personal problems in the light of clients' stories of perseverance, strength, and growth. This study aimed at exploring the experiences of mental health, physical healthcare, and settlement workers caring for refugees and asylum seekers in South Australia. Using a qualitative method (data-based thematic analysis) to collect and analyse 26 semi-structured face-to-face interviews, we identified four prominent and recurring themes emanating from the data: VT, VR, work satisfaction, and cultural flexibility. These findings-among the first to describe both VT and VR in Australians working with refugee people-have important implications for policy, service quality, service providers' wellbeing, and refugee clients' lives., (© The Author(s) 2015.)

This study highlights psychosocial needs of gynecological cancer survivors, contributing to evaluation of the Cancer Survivors Unmet Needs measure. Of the 45 participants, 28.9% reported clinical anxiety, 20.0% mild-to-severe depression, and 15.6% had probable posttraumatic stress disorder. Strength of unmet needs was associated with anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress, poorer quality of life, younger age, and greater time since diagnosis. Linear regressions showed clinical measures, quality of life, optimism, and self-blaming coping style explained 56.4% of strength of unmet needs. Anxiety, functional well-being, posttraumatic stress, and emotional well-being accounted for 40.7% of variance in fear of recurrence, with emotional well-being the strongest predictor.