This dissertation studied the feasibility and acceptability of Through Alzheimer's Eyes, an easy-to-access psychoeducational and skill-building intervention that incorporates information and communication technologies (ICT) that can help to prepare caregivers of persons with Alzheimer’s and related dementias to improve communication skills and manage behavioral issues. Using a Modular Dissertation format, the dissertation includes three manuscripts covering the intervention underpinnings, results, and environmental impact. The first manuscript describes the rationale, protocol, and design of the intervention Through Alzheimer's Eyes. The second manuscript explores the feasibility and acceptability of study results from a mixed-methods approach. The third manuscript offers the impact of a virtual intervention on carbon emissions and potential savings for caregivers of people with dementia. Together, the three manuscripts describe the intervention design, results, and future directions for research and practice.

In past decades, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) rapidly gained attentionas a public health crisis due to dose-response relationships with a range of health and social problems, and early mortality. Converging studies show that ACEs are a pandemic in the general population of the United States—even in middle to upper-middle class families that are considered to be ‘better off’. There have been collaborative efforts in public health to target root-causes of childhood adversity and increase resilient adaptation in individuals and families at risk. Due to the importance of fostering positive adaptation in the midst of adversity, this dissertation sought to examine both vulnerability and protective factors in children’s proximal ecology—e.g., parents and caring adults at school. A population-based study in this dissertation revealed that parents’ emotional well-being, measured as negative feelings toward parenting, greatly influences developing children, so as support and resources for parenting. The presence of caring adults as a protective factor in teens with highly competitive settings—a newly identified at-risk group due to high pressure to achieve and internalizing/externalizing problems. Lastly, this dissertation discusses conceptual and methodological limitations in current ways of measuring ACEs and provide future directions for research, practice, and policy. Suggestions include frequent assessments on reaching consensus on how to define ACEs, expanding the concept of ACEs, considering the duration, timing, and severity of the event. Healthcare professionals have important roles in public health; they incorporate frequent assessments on parents’ emotional wellbeing and needs for parenting as a part of care. Ongoing support from multiple disciplines is necessary to reduce the impact of ACEs and strengthen resilience development of children and families.

What is the correct response towards the world being set on fire? Climate change is a global emergency that can cause many emotions within people, including climate anxiety and ecological grief. While both of these emotions are valid responses to the global emergency humanity is facing, it is essential that environmentalists and humanitarians throughout the world hold on to hope when addressing this crisis. It is also essential that they tend to their mental health as they work to tend to the world. My thesis describes my journey in working to promote hope in the environmental movement and the framework for a global mental health study I am conducting on environmentalists. Inner sustainability (the practice of taking care of one's mental health) and outer sustainability (the practice of taking care of the world) need to coexist in order for any movement to truly be sustainable.

Research on acceptability of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) for populations with substance use disorders (SUD) is extremely limited. Intervention development and testing guidelines note that acceptability of the intervention by the target population is important for retention, efficacy, and intervention integrity. Yet, MBIs for SUD studies have not measured acceptability or have done so in a cursory manner, therefore, the question remains of whether MBIs are acceptable to populations in SUD treatment. The proposed study seeks to fill this knowledge gap by undertaking a conceptually-grounded empirical approach to assess acceptability of Moment-by-Moment in Women’s Recovery (MMWR), which is an MBI for women with SUD. This document is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the topic and provides background literature. Chapter 2 systematically reviews MBIs for SUD studies to assess measurement of acceptability. Chapter 3 analyzes the psychometric properties of two acceptability surveys used in MMWR. Chapter 4 examines the associations among the acceptability surveys, personal characteristics of the participants, and application of intervention techniques. And Chapter 5 summarizes the previous chapters and discusses future directions for this line of work. There is a need for a greater understanding of which factors may influence participants’ abilities to accept an intervention. The results identify sociodemographic and clinical characteristics that can inform future intervention adaptations, screening, or pre-intervention programs to increase efficiency of SUD intervention delivery and relevance. The long-term goal is to improve fit and efficacy of MBIs for SUD for minority and underrepresented populations.

Nowadays, the word mindfulness has become popular in a different part of the world especially in school and work environment to practice self-care through meditations and other mindfulness-based interventions. Mindfulness means simply being aware of the present and anchoring our self at the moment without any judgments. Additionally, there are plenty of ways to practice mindfulness whether through focusing our attention on our breathing, mindful walking, yoga, tai-chi, and many more. Students are often bombarded with much information from their academics but at the same time with their tasks and responsibilities outside of their academics. The school environment encourages students to thrive in the community to learn and be the best version of themselves, however, this could lead to some depressive disorders such as anxiety, stress, and the feeling of overwhelm. I, myself experienced having anxiety and a high level of stress throughout my college journey. My thesis focuses on the importance of equitable mindfulness including different interventions to practice self-care and the importance of being a resilient student in a thriving community. Moreover, along with my thesis, I created the Be Present (BPRSNT) website blog, which is an interactive tool and resource to students and the community to highlights the benefits of mindfulness and ways to overcome some challenges. Since almost everyone has access to online technology and information the main goal of the Be Present is to disseminate information about the importance of practicing self-care specifically in a robust and fast phase community by having a positive mindset and a mindful living. Aside from the website blog, I also created a personalized journal which is a tool that can help students and the community to practice mindfulness through writing whether coming up with to-do lists or journaling the events that happen in their life. It is also a good and fun way to document innovative ideas and passions.

Background – Among influential education reports, there is clear consensus that an expansive range of intrapersonal (e.g. self-regulation) and interpersonal competencies (e.g. empathy) highly influence educational and career success. Research on teaching and learning these competencies is limited in engineering education.

Purpose/Hypothesis – This dissertation study explores the impacts of a mindfulness training program on first-year engineering students and aims to understand potential impacts on the development of intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies.

Design/Method – A four-session mindfulness-based training program was designed, developed, and facilitated to cultivate intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies. This study employed a multiphase mixed method design in which quantitative and qualitative data was collected from a total of 35 different students through a post survey (n=31), 3-month follow-up survey (n=29), and interviews (n=18). t-tests were used to evaluate the statistical significance of the program and a rigorous thematic analysis process was utilized to help explain the quantitative data.

Results – The results suggest that the majority of students became more mindful, which led to improved intrapersonal competencies (i.e. self-management, critical-thinking, focus, resilience, and well-being) and interpersonal competencies (i.e. empathy, communication, teamwork, and leadership).

Discussion / Conclusions – The study provides compelling evidence that mindfulness training can support the development of intrapersonal and interpersonal skills among engineering students, which can support their overall academic experience, as well as personal and professional development. Future design and development work will be needed to evaluate the integration and scalability potential of mindfulness training within engineering programs.

This paper will use a national cross-sectional survey approach to look at the association between trainable mind-body qualities (mindfulness and self-compassion) with well-being and resilience in 111 college students across the U.S.. Specifically, it will investigate (1) the relationship between trainable qualities (mindfulness, self-compassion) and the resilience, and subjective well-being in students, and (2) compare how these variables were distributed based on enrollment in a college course on compassion. After examination of descriptive statistics and Pearson correlations, comparative analyses were also employed to determine whether enrollment in compassion college courses had any relationship to one’s scores. Results: Respondents included 12 students enrolled in Compassion college course, and 99 students who were not. Both mindfulness and self-compassion showed significant positive correlations with well-being and resilience in all students, and in subgroups based on enrollment at p < .01. Additionally, students enrolled in the course averaged 3 points higher scores across all measures except resilience, where scores were about the same. Conclusions: In all college students, regardless of their enrollment in Compassion, well-being and resilience are positively correlated with both mindfulness and self-compassion. Furthermore, scores based on enrollment in “Compassion” yielded higher levels of mindfulness, self-compassion, resilience, and well-being.