Due to the intellectual, physical, and emotional demands of field research, those doing this work need to strategies to monitor and maintain their own mental health before, during, and after a field season. Moreover, they should have a framework for supporting their colleagues. This review article will present a framework for assessing the mental health hazards and the reactions, both positive and negative, to fieldwork. First, it will use U.S. epidemiology to show that most field teams are at risk. Second, it will frame the field season both as a workplace and wilderness exposure event and discuss the elements of the field research environment that can be therapeutic for some but toxic for others. Third, it will discuss the psychological impacts of travel and reintegration as they are pertinent to the practice of archaeology. Research will be presented in order to guide evidence-informed policies for the field research team to improve the mental-health readiness and resiliency of the research team. Last, it will provide guidance on how to manage the anxiety caused by separating from social media platforms.

Substance use in adolescence relates to other problems such as involvement in violence and mental/physical health problems. This study aimed to identify substance use patterns in a considerable sample of Brazilian adolescents and to estimate the magnitude of the relationship between each pattern and violence involvement indicators, as aggressor and/or as victim, and of mental and general health. The data analyzed were collected from 6702 schoolchildren, within the scope of the National Survey of School Health, employing latent class analysis for reports of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and crack cocaine use. The five groups identified were compared regarding their involvement in violence and mental and general health aspects. Abstainers (18%) would neither make use of substances, nor be involved in violence or display health problems. Drinkers (26%) would tend to only make use of alcohol, but would not display the other problems either. Conventional Drug Users (28%) would tend to make use of alcohol and tobacco or alcohol and marijuana and would also be involved in violence, but would not display health problems. Polysubstance Users (23%) would tend to make use of alcohol, tobacco and marijuana and would be more frequently involved in violence. Hard Drug Users (5%) would tend to make frequent use of all substances in addition to also being more involved in violence, both as aggressor and victim, and would display mental/general health problems. Our findings reveal different levels of problems and reinforce the importance of varied prevention/treatment policies in order to meet specific demands.

Previous research has revealed a persistent association between social structure and mental health. However, most researchers have focused only on the psychological and psychosocial aspects of that relationship. The present paper indicates the need to include the social and structural bases of distress in our theoretical models. Starting from a general social and psychological model, our research considered the role of several social, environmental, and structural variables (social position, social stressors, and social integration), psychological factors (self-esteem), and psychosocial variables (perceived social support). The theoretical model was tested working with a group of Spanish participants (N = 401) that covered a range of social positions. The results obtained using structural equation modeling support our model, showing the relevant role played by psychosocial, psychological and social, and structural factors. Implications for theory and intervention are discussed.

Psychological models of mental disorders play an important role in the explanation of psychological deterioration. Researchers from this area usually study several cognitive and behavioral variables to account for the onset and maintenance of depression. However, many authors have detected the need to include a “social dimension” in the explanation of deterioration. In this sense, social support has become a crucial aspect in the study of mental health, and the psychological literature on this topic has generated an intense debate about several facets of the positive impact of social networks on psychological well-being. In this article, the author defends that this increasing centrality of the concept has been accompanied by a psychological reductionism that is making the role of “social aspects” to explain psychological well-being more problematic. Implications of this reductionism are discussed, and an alternative proposal is made to overcome some theoretical and empirical problems related to social support research.

One of the procedures used most recently with longitudinal data is linear mixed models. In the context of health research the increasing number of studies that now use these models bears witness to the growing interest in this type of analysis. This paper describes the application of linear mixed models to a longitudinal study of a sample of Spanish adolescents attending a mental health service, the aim being to investigate their knowledge about the consumption of alcohol and other drugs. More specifically, the main objective was to compare the efficacy of a motivational interviewing programme with a standard approach to drug awareness. The models used to analyse the overall indicator of drug awareness were as follows: (a) unconditional linear growth curve model; (b) growth model with subject-associated variables; and (c) individual curve model with predictive variables. The results showed that awareness increased over time and that the variable ‘schooling years’ explained part of the between-subjects variation. The effect of motivational interviewing was also significant.

Se investigaron los cambios en la atmósfera de la sala de una unidad de rehabilitación laboral psiquiátrica. Tanto los cursillistas como el personal cumplimentaron la Escala del Ambiente de Programas Orientados a la Comunidad (COPES) antes y después de que se implantara un nuevo modelo de rehabilitación. Se hizo la hipótesis de que los niveles de autonomía y orientación práctica aumentarían con respecto a la atmósfera real de la sala tanto desde la perspectiva de los cursillistas como desde la del personal y que las percepciones del personal de una atmósfera ideal de sala cambiarían de la misma manera. El personal percibió un mayor nivel de autonomía tanto con respecto a la atmósfera real de la sala como con respecto a lo que constituye una atmósfera ideal de sala, lo que confirmó en parte las hipótesis, pero el nivel de orientación práctica fue estable. Con respecto a la estimación del personal de una atmósfera ideal de sala, otros cambios fueron un nivel mayor de implicación y una disminución en la espontaneidad, sobre lo que no se había hecho hipótesis, pero que no estaba en conflicto con la filosofía detrás del nuevo modelo. Desde la perspectiva del cursillista, no hubo modificación de la autonomía o la orientación práctica. En cambio, hubo una disminución en la orientación a los problemas personales. Comparado con un perfil óptimo, la atmósfera de la sala era beneficiosa lo mismo antes que después de la implantación del nuevo programa. Se encontraron diferencias entre el personal y los cursillistas, pero no fueron lo bastante grandes para separar a los grupos según lo que se considera un perfil óptimo. Los pocos cambios encontrados apoyan las conclusiones anteriores de que la atmósfera de la sala es un fenómeno estable en el tiempo.