The Journal of mHealth Vol 1 Issue 3 (June 2014) | Page 41

Understanding Stress and Post-traumatic Growth
®

Ready for the most innovative ideas in healthcare

when specific content files are distributed to students. There is a common
blog site for students and instructors
to discuss their responses to the course
content, which is carefully monitored by
course administrators. They are able to
remove inappropriate comments at anytime (together with explanatory interaction with the poster) in order to maintain the positive tone of the interactions
and to encourage individual growth and
understanding of experiences.
Evaluation of the student's progress is
simple, in that each time an individual
enters Tiatros, it is accompanied by a
time-stamped record, and completed
assignments are also noted. This allows
the instructors to automatically prompt
individual students to access and complete assignments and keep up with the
course, as well as to spontaneously interact with the individual if they seem to be
particularly troubled.
For troubled students who want more
individual help, there is a list of sites to
which they can go for that help, in addition to private conversations with the
psychiatrists involved in the course.
Efficacy of the course for students can
be evaluated formally through pre- and
post-course questionnaires, once institu-

™"

tional approval for this is gained. Privacy
is ensured through the transformation
of student names into numbers. Tiatros supports technology-assisted, direct
engagement of students that provides
a unique and highly effective channel to collect information in real-time
through a variety of validated means,
such as questionnaires about symptoms
of PTSD, substance abuse, personality,
growth relationships and other relevant
information. Additionally, written course
assignments by individuals can be automatically evaluated for changes in word
usage and hopefulness in story telling
that qualitatively estimates changes in
outlook of the individual throughout the
course. Tiatros support the capability of
downloading the responses directly into
a number of programs that can evaluate
them for significance.
Figure 1: Schematic showing the TiatrosResearch product as it supports the Next
Mission offering:
Two versions of Next Mission have been
given in person in classes taught at City
College San Francisco. The response
of the Veteran students who took the
course was positive with respect to aid
from each of the narrative, neuroscience and writing portions. The course
given through the Tiatros platform will

be beta-tested at several military sites in
2014.
Beyond the current course, future
courses tailored toward the specific
problems experienced by female veterans, and the families of returning veterans are now being developed.

REFERENCES

1. Kim P. Y. Et al. 2010. Stigma, Barriers
to Care, and Use of Mental Health Services
Among Active Duty and National Guard
Soldiers After Combat. Psychiatric Services
61:582, 2010.
2. Hoge C.W. Et al. 2004. Combat Duty in
Iraq and Afghanistan, Mental Health Problems, and Bar