Adjustment Case Study

ADJUSTMENT CASE STUDY
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Adjustment Case Study
Introduction
Most people spend their time at work or even at schools under stressful situations. The students must balance their tests, projects, extra-curricular activities, classes and work among the college students. On the other hand the other workers must balance between their stressing jobs; they have to face their cruel bosses now and then. At last they end overwhelmed by the kind of jobs they do. In this art, I am going to focus on two individuals who struggled to adjust despite the stressful situations they were experiencing.
The first article tries to explain the stressors and the potential stressors among the college students. It mainly examines strategies that the students put in place to cope up with their stressful situations. How their strategies relate to social support, the kind of parenting style that the mothers and fathers of these college students adopt, how they experience anxiety, and the some of the academic based stress too are explored in the first article (Smith & Renk, 2007).
In a questionnaire filled by ninety-three students, the results came out suggesting that anxiety, support from major others and problem-focused coping can easily serve as some of the potential predictors of the stress that are academic based that were common among the college students. It then means that to help the college students get rid of the academic-related trauma, it is advisable to identify the variables that are causing the stress among the students and then address each of the variables in a practical ways.

In so doing the college students will experience less stress and they will also be able to concentrate on their academic works and excel in their courses at the college.
The second article is suicide among war veterans; it is trying to explain why most of the war veterans are at high risk of committing suicide as compared to the rest of the population (Smith & Renk, 2007). It adds that the war veterans are at high risk of suffering mental illnesses and they are likely to up with suicidal ideas. War exposure on the war veterans makes them develop depression and comorbid states making them more prone to suicide acts.
There is great need to help the war veterans to be in a good position that enables them to be able to deal with the stressful situations they that they had. In this article, there is a suggested frame that is stress-vulnerability model. This model explains that the consequences of stress can easily interact with the social factors, psychological variables and interpersonal relations to produce the suicidal urges among the war veterans. The stress-vulnerability mechanisms can be based on the genetic order of a given person. This together with the level that a person is exposed to stress, early life as one grows, and stress reactivity, as well as the interpersonal relationships, can help a person build a powerful program that can effectively prevent suicide among the people who are faced with stressful situations. And these are based on the universal prevention mechanisms.
The major adjustment issues discussed in Article One
As much as going to college give the students hope in their future lives, the life of the college can be full of anxiety and stress for the students. When the stressors in the life of college students combine, for instance, the students have to plan for their future, they struggle a lot with exams and their assignments. Also, they have to meet the demands set by their professors; they have to decide on the major and transit into financial and emotional independence as their parents by this time will be trying to harden their children off. Such experiences can be that overwhelming to the majority of the college students. In addition to the stressors, the students also wonder a lot if they will be able to meet their expectations together with those of their friends and parents. With all the factors, students undergo a lot of stressful situations as they stay in the colleges, and those factors are responsible for their functioning and performance in the college.
Examine at least three (3) evidence-based strategies from the article [Article One] that could help the individuals in each article enhance their adjustment skills.
There are several variables that can contribute to the academic related stress that the college students go through. Some of the variables that can help the students reduce the stress they face in college may include; coping strategies that is mostly used by the college students themselves when they are faced with stressful situations, parenting styles that are used by the parents of the college students and the use of students’ perceived social support.
Coping Strategies
Most of the students consider stressful conditions to play key roles in their transitional period as they attend college for the first time. They will try to utilize the effective coping means so that they can be able to avoid the negative results of the stressful conditions they undergo. For instance, in a study that was carried out with the first year students pursuing medicine, found out that if students tend to adopt more of the coping strategies, they will suffer less deterioration in their physical health that come as a result of stress. Before resolving onto a specific coping strategy, the individuals are required to understand the stressors in their life. Coping may mean what individual devises to manage his or her stressors. The stressors can be internal or external and that they distract the peaceful mind of the individual. The coping strategies vary from one student to another depending on the kind of stressor a student is to encounter. The coping strategies may be problem-focus or emotion focused; a problem-focused coping strategy is mostly used when an individual has resolved that indeed there is harmful, challenging or a threatening situation that he may be able to deal with. The individual who is stressed will try to alter the stressing situation within his means. Here the strategies aim at altering the stressful conditions. An example of problem-focused strategies may include; coming up with a study plan for an approaching examination or even moving out of a stressful room.
On the other hand, an emotion-focused coping strategy mainly focuses on addressing the negative emotions that are the great ingredients for the stressful situations. It can be applied especially in situations where an individual under stressful condition thinks that the condition is out of her control. For example, when a person has resolved that there is nothing to be done to curb the stressful situation. They include denial, avoidance, seeking emotional support, wishful thinking and they can be applied to try to maintain hope, act in a manner that can show that the stressor does not matter or to deny the effects of the stressor. For example ignoring an intolerable roommate or speaking to the family members when in a crisis or regulation of the emotions when studying for an exam.
Parenting styles
The early child-parent relations and communication have an effect on the way such children respond to the academic related stress they face while in the college. The kind of relationship an infant have with his primary caregiver can be influential in his life forever. The kind of parenting mothers and fathers give their children is such an important component as far as how that student will carry out himself academically and his general lifestyle. For example if a parent is permissive in that they will exercise very little over their children and such parents tend to use very little punishment forms in their parenting (From Factory, 2015). The authoritarian parents tend to be very demanding, and they are highly directive when dealing with their children. They expect total obedience from their children as they provide everything for their children, and they are very close to their children than the other parents. They control the behaviors of their children most of the time. On the other hand, the authoritative parents are just in between the authoritarian and permissive parents. There exist some relationships between the parenting styles and how the children will behave in the college i.e. the performance of the child in college, self-esteem, and depression, the level of perfectionism, self-actualization and performance goals of the children as they reach college level. However, some of the children do deviate from their behaviors when they are with their parents to other weird habits when in college that may end up affecting their college performance.
Social support
Social support and parental style play the same role in the life of the college students. The manner in which students try to cope up with the academic related stress depends on the kind of social support he or she seeks out.
From the article [Article One] recommend the evidence-based strategy that is best suited for the people in the selected articles. Provide a rationale for your response.
For the college students, they should adopt one of the coping strategies i.e. problem-focused strategies as it is significant in predicting the academic related stress levels among the college students. The experiment in this article found out that if more problem-focused strategies are applied by the college students, the academic-related stress level will decrease and that such a strategy should be applied whenever the stressful situation increases.
Major adjustment issues in Article Two.
The article mainly aims at understanding the potential risk factors and situations that lead the war veterans to commit suicide. It tries to explain that it is not all those who are in the military who are at the higher risk of committing suicide. It examines the psychological, emotional effects of war on the ex-soldiers (Kintzle, Yarvis & Bride, 2013). Due to the effects of the war, most of the war veterans suffer mental illness and psychological trauma after they return to their civilian lifestyle making them more vulnerable to suicidal acts. Most of the ex-soldiers all over the world suffer when they become civilians thus there is the need to help them out of the stress they are undergoing.
Examine at least three (3) evidence-based strategies from the article [Article Two] that could help the individuals in each article enhance their adjustment skills.
To come up with control measures to the problems the war veterans face after they are discharged to the civil life, three approaches to controlling suicide may be employed i.e. universal approach, selective approach and indicated approach model (Kintzle, Yarvis & Bride, 2013).
The universal prevention targets the whole population as those who were enrolled in the armed forces. Selective approach targets those who participated in the risky parts such as the combat veterans. Additionally, the indicated approach targets those who have developed the symptoms of PTSD and mood disorders as well as those who have experienced brain trauma. It also entailed people who have been wounded as they were discharging duties thus they suffered pain, the others who are included here are those who may have been alienated or excluded during war or they faced crisis situations in their line of duty (After Afghanistan, 2015). Suicide prevention among the war veterans should mainly focus on the following;
i. Better screening when admitting a person into the army, for instance, their early life events need to be addressed properly, and care should also be taken to accommodate for future variations in their genetics.
ii. There should be developed better strategies to help in psychological training and support to the war veterans (Rozanov & Carli, 2012).
iii. There should be the implementation of war veterans’ status that aims at confirming the improvements in the recognition of their mental health and better treatment mechanisms if illnesses appear.
iv. Their physical health should be taken care of most of the time; they should be rehabilitated from trauma and any form of pain.
v. Suicidal tendencies should be identified early.
vi. Their families should be supported all the time and included in the society (US Military, 2005).
From the article [Article Two] recommend the evidence-based strategy that is best suited for the people in the selected articles. Provide a rationale for your response.
For the war veterans, the indicated approach should be used to help address their stressful situations to help reduce the rate at which they commit suicide. This is because all the war veterans need to be checked to ensure that they are always at peace, their health should be ok all the time such that they don’t feel the urge to commit suicide (US Military, 2005).
Conclusion
Both the college students and the military veterans face some problems as they try to settle down. Each of them should be guided in the best way possible to adapt to the situations they find themselves in to avoid cases of them committing suicide. The trauma the students and the military veterans go through can affect the effort each of them put to the economy.
References
From Factory To Classroom: A Worker, A Student — And A Mother[Audio file]. (2015, September 25). Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/2015/09/25/443081886/from-factory-to-classroom-a-worker-a-student-and-a-motherSmith, T., &Renk, K. (2007). Predictors of Academic-Related Stress in College Students: An Examination of Coping, Social Support, Parenting, and Anxiety. NASPA Journal (National Association Of Student Personnel Administrators, Inc.), 44(3), 405-431.
After Afghanistan, A Father Came Home — Then Disappeared [Audio file]. (2015, September 9). Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/2015/09/05/437559840/after-afghanistan-a-father-came-home-then-disappeared
Kintzle, S., Yarvis, J. S., & Bride, B. E. (2013). Secondary traumatic stress in military primary and mental health care providers. Military Medicine, 178(12), 1310-1315 6p. doi:10.7205/MILMED-D-13-00087
US military eyes online mental healthcare. (2005). Distance Education Report, 9(10), 6.Rozanov, V., & Carli, V. (2012). Suicide among war veterans. International Journal Of Environmental Research And Public Health, 9(7), 2504-2519. doi:10.3390/ijerph9072504