Massey Documents by Type

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/294

Browse

Subject: search.filters.subject.Social support

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Protective factors in potential trauma for adolescent surf lifesavers
    (Elsevier Limited, United Kingdom, 2025-12) Lawes JC; Fien S; Ledger J; Drummond M; Simon P; Joseph N; Daw S; Best T; Stanton R; de Terte I
    Introduction: Surf lifesavers form a key part of Australia's first responder workforce. Patrolling members can start from 13 years old, with potential exposure to traumatic incidents. Protective factors may mitigate the trauma exposure. This study investigated protective factors associated with mental health outcomes among adolescent surf lifesavers (13–17 years), including in response to exposure to potentially traumatic events. Methods: An online survey was developed to collect data from Australian surf lifesavers (13–17 years). Measures included demographic factors, stressful life events, post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), self-efficacy, social support, and attitudes toward mental health problems. Hierarchical regressions and moderation analyses explored the relationships between variables. Results: There were 118 responses collected with overall mean age 15.4 years (SD = 1.3). PTSS was moderately to strongly positively correlated with all trauma domains. Higher self-efficacy and social support scores were correlated with lower PTSS. Hierarchical regression showed that Trauma within SLS, social support, self-efficacy and attitudes toward mental health were significantly associated with the outcome in the final regression model (F(5,110) = 17.87, p < 0.001), with the protective factors collectively explaining 28% of the variance in PTSS. Negative attitudes were positively associated with PTSS, while social support and self-efficacy scores were both negatively associated with PTSS. Conclusions: This study highlights the critical and protective interplay between social support, self-efficacy, mental health attitudes and trauma exposure among adolescent surf lifesavers. The findings will guide the development of targeted interventions to support younger patrolling members with an emphasis on supportive interventions to improve resilience and wellbeing in young emergency service personnel exposed to trauma. Practical applications: This study highlights the importance of encouraging protective factors with young individuals in emergency service roles, with practical implications for mental health professionals, emergency service agencies, surf lifesaving organizations, and policymakers interested in promoting the wellbeing of adolescent emergency service personnel.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Resisting stigma: the role of online communities in young mothers' successful breastfeeding.
    (BioMed Central Ltd, 2024-03-06) Severinsen C; Neely E; Hutson R
    BACKGROUND: Breastfeeding initiation and continuation rates are shaped by complex and interrelated determinants across individual, interpersonal, community, organisational, and policy spheres. Young mothers, however, face a double burden of stigma, being perceived as immature and incompetent in their mothering and breastfeeding abilities. In this study, we aimed to understand the experiences of young mothers who exclusively breastfed for six months and beyond and explore their experiences of stigma and active resistance through social media. METHODS: In 2020, in-depth telephone interviews about breastfeeding experiences were conducted with 44 young mothers under age 25 in Aotearoa New Zealand who breastfed for six months or longer. Participants were recruited via social media. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed thematically. RESULTS: Analysis yielded four themes on young mothers' negotiation of breastfeeding and support. The first three themes revealed young mothers' encounters with socio-cultural contexts. They faced negative judgments about maturity and competence, adverse guidance to supplement or cease breastfeeding, and an undermining of their breastfeeding efforts. The fourth theme showed how young mothers sought alternative support in online environments to avoid negative interactions. Online spaces provided anonymity, convenience, experiential knowledge and social connections with shared values. This facilitated identity strengthening, empowerment and stigma resistance. CONCLUSION: Our research highlights the importance of online communities as a tool for young mothers to navigate and resist the societal stigmas surrounding breastfeeding. Online spaces can provide a unique structure that can help counteract the adverse effects of social and historical determinants on breastfeeding rates by fostering a sense of inclusion and support. These findings have implications for the development of breastfeeding promotion strategies for young mothers and highlight the potential of peer support in counteracting the negative impacts of stigma. The research also sheds light on the experiences of young mothers within the health professional relationship and the effects of stigma and cultural health capital on their engagement and withdrawal from services. Further research should examine how sociocultural barriers to breastfeeding stigmatise and marginalise young mothers and continue to reflect on their socio-political and economic positioning and how it can exacerbate inequities.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    'It's not a him, it's a her' : an exploration into the changes and challenges, meanings and mechanisms in the lives of Timorese women workers on the offshore Bayu-Undan Gas Recycling Project : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Development Studies, Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2014) Adams, Virginia
    This thesis is concerned with the ways in which the potentials of a group of Timorese women, with early aspirations of achieving economic self-reliance through formal work, have been realised through their recruitment into non-traditional jobs on the Bayu-Undan Gas Recycling Project in the Timor Sea. The aspirational horizons and experiences of the sixteen women who comprise the sample of this study run counter to those of most women in Timor-Leste, where poverty and pervasive patriarchal ideologies relegate them to the domestic sphere as wives and mothers subject to the authority of men. Their reality as working women also runs counter to that of other female waged workers in the developing world reported as experiencing poor wages and working conditions and discrimination in the workplace and for some, resentment or violence from husbands. The findings of this study point to new evidence of young Timorese women at the beginning of their post-secondary school journeys exhibiting a high level of agency. This is reflected in their personal qualities, both inherent and socially fostered, of determination, courage and self-belief, and confidence in their aptitude to learn new competencies, with strategic goals of economic independence and an awareness of their right to shape their own lives towards this end. In addition to this they have had the crucial social resource of support from family members and from husbands and male partners. It is rare to see the inclusion of gender, explicitly or tacitly, in the local content commitments associated with petroleum extraction projects in developing countries. This thesis has identified the pivotal role, played by a locally-owned Timorese contracting company, confident in the capacity of Timorese women to be effective offshore crewmembers, in shaping the employee component of the Bayu-Undan project’s local content to incorporate females. What is also of significance is that these women occupy well-paid, valued positions of responsibility on the western platform, where a culture of non-gender discrimination sees them receiving respect from male personnel, including their Timorese male co-workers, and being supported in their ambitions to up-skill, in some cases into historically male areas. At home, the women’s new identities as high income-earners employed in non-traditional work have given them greater social and economic status. While there is some concern that their economic autonomy could be eroded by excessive family demands, the new financial resources provided by the women are seen by them, and others, as important obligations towards improving the lives and prospects of extended family members. Additionally, as a ‘realising potential’ outcome from their incomes, new opportunities and valued ways of being have opened up for the women themselves and their immediate families.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Depression as a function of stressful life events, social support and personality : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2000) Freedman, Tracy Amanda
    The effects of stressful life events, personality factors (extroversion, socialization/psychoticism and emotionality/neuroticism) and social support on depression were assessed. A questionnaire consisting of The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, College Life Stress Inventory, Depression Inventory, and The Brief Social Support Questionnaire was administered to a sample of 124 volunteer university students enrolled in undergraduate psychology courses. Results showed that other than for socialization, with women scoring higher on average than men, there were no significant differences between men and women, or between ethnic groups, on any of the variables. Age was found to be inversely related to stressful university life events. Emotional instability and low satisfaction with social supports predicted depression. The effects of university life events on depression were mediated by satisfaction with social supports, but not by number of social supports. Emotional stability was found to predict satisfaction with social supports. Emotional instability predicted severity of university life events and explained the largest proportion of variance in depression scores.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Exploring the protective role of perceived social support on physical health in the retirement transition : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science in Psychology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2013) Rayner, Claire
    New Zealand has an ageing population which will pose a number of economic challenges as the population structure changes. This has prompted a need to find ways to help people age healthily and successfully into later life to reduce the costs associated with poor health and dependence. The transition to retirement is focused on in this study as a key period of time when numerous contextual factors undergo change and adjustment that may impact on later health outcomes. One change in the retirement transition is often the reorganisation of social relationships, and in accord with previous research it was hypothesised that perceptions of available social support would play a protective role on physical health for middle-to-older age adults as they make the transition from paid employment to retirement. This longitudinal study used data obtained from the 2006, 2008 and 2010 waves of the New Zealand Health, Work and Retirement Study. The participants were a representative sample of middle to older age New Zealanders who provided responses to a postal survey in each wave of data collection (N = 1834). Hierarchical regression analysis was employed to explore the relationship between retirement, social support, social network type and health outcomes. Regression analysis revealed that retirees experience slightly poorer health than workers and that this relationship cannot be accounted for by age or health status prior to retirement. Contrary to predictions, social support prior to retirement and changes in social support during the retirement transition did not explain this relationship. Further to this, social support only had a weak and unstable impact on health regardless of employment status. However, when examining the different types of social support, Social Integration was found to be important to health. Social Integration had a small positive direct effect on health for both retirees and workers, but particularly so for retirees as demonstrated by a significant interaction. Further investigation of the impact of Social Integration on health during the transition to retirement is suggested as a useful direction for future research.