Yasuhiro Kotera

University of Nottingham | Notts · School of Health Sciences

COVID-19 impacted the mental health of many people in the UK. The negative impact was especially substantial among vulnerable population groups, including migrants. While research has focused on the negative aspects of mental health during the pandemic, the positive mental health of migrants in the UK during COVID-19 remained to be evaluated. This...

Climate change presents a significant threat to both the planet and human prosperity which impacts our physical health and mental well-being. There is an imminent requirement for significant global action. This means (a) our children have been born into unprecedented times and (b) as future adults, they will find themselves facing the major consequ...

Background Healthcare services regularly receive patient feedback, most of which is positive. Empirical studies suggest that health services can use positive feedback to create patient benefit. Our aim was to map all available empirical evidence for how positive patient feedback creates change in healthcare settings. Methods Empirical studies in E...

Partnering with people most affected by mental health problems can transform mental health outcomes. Citizen science as a research approach enables partnering with the public at a substantial scale, but there is scarce guidance on its use in mental health research. To develop best practise guidelines for conducting and reporting research, we conduc...

Awareness of mental health has been increasing rapidly worldwide in recent years, and even more so since the outbreak of COVID-19. Depression is now regarded as one of the most debilitating diseases, and wellbeing is incorporated into the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. In order for all of us to have a happy life, mental health canno...

The employment of mental health peer support (PS) is recommended in national and international mental health policy, and widely implemented across many countries. The key components of PS remain to be identified. This study aimed to develop a typology of components involved in one-to-one PS for adults in mental health services. A systematised revie...

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic impacted people’s mental health negatively worldwide, including non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic) countries. Self-compassion, kindness and understanding towards oneself in difficult times, has received increasing attention in the field of mental health. Self-compassio...

Interdisciplinary Journal of Student Success

This is a Special Issue on "Comparing Mental Health Cross-Culturally"

This chapter focuses on forest bathing (shinrin-yoku), a Japanese healing practice that has been attracting attention in science globally. Historically, forest bathing developed in 1982 to counter a heightened stress at the national level, which was associated with Japan’s rapid economic growth. Considering today’s global mental health crisis, it i...

Physical activity has consistently shown to improve mental health. However, the mechanism of how those activities help mental health remains debated. Attempts have been made to explain that physical activity induces numerous molecular and structural changes in the brain that markedly improve symptoms associated with mental health issues such as dep...

Mental well-being of youth is a cause for concern in many countries. Our previous research identified challenged mental well-being among a particular group of youth, namely university students, in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Often students struggle transitioning to university life, balanc...

The sensationalized reports of adverse reactions following human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination in Japan in 2013 caused the government to suspend its vaccination program recommendation. This resulted in a steep drop in the HPV vaccination coverage from the previous 70% to less than 1%, which situation lasted for about eight years. Although vaccin...

Recent changes in mental health policies within Japanese organisations have been marked by the introduction of Work Style Reforms, however, workplace mental health still faces significant challenges, including an excessive reliance on psychiatric treatment and cultural stigma surrounding mental health in Japan. This commentary, therefore, suggests...

How a person perceives mental health problems impacts their mental health. Negative attitudes towards mental health problems are associated with shame, leading to poor mental health. Poor mental health is a cause for concern in Japan, especially among healthcare professionals. To date, no established measure exists in the Japanese language. The Att...

secondary traumatic stress associated with, their job. Self-compassion is associated with positive wellbeing outcomes across a variety of workforce populations and is potentially an important skill for healthcare workers, as it offers a way of meeting one’s own distress with kindness and understanding. This systematic review aimed to synthesise and...

Background. Mental health problems can significantly impact a student’s academic performance, career, health, and future if they are not identified and managed in time. The poor mental health of young people is a global problem, including in Nepal. However, the scenario of perceived stress among adolescent students residing in academic hostels is n...

Research commonly agrees on the importance of case conceptualisation within clinical therapeutic approaches; however, it has also been largely acknowledged that there is a lack of evidence measuring the reliability and quality within this initial stage. A review of the literature complicates suggestions by presenting how case conceptualisation cove...

Disasters could jeopardize breast cancer care, and the 2011 Japan’s triple disaster (earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident) has been no exception. However, the information is lacking regarding its details, including that concerning breast cancer-related lymphedema (BCRL). We aimed to explore the process of becoming aware of BCRL among the local...

The COVID-19 pandemic and the shift of power to the Taliban have negatively affected women-owned companies. This study aimed to explore the external and internal challenges of women-owned businesses from March 2020 to January 2022 in Afghanistan. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted from December 2021 to January 2022 with 29 women-own...

Third Culture Kids (TCK) are children who spend a significant period living outside of their home country but reside only temporarily in a host country. TCKs upbringing can lead to a number of negative psychological outcomes including depression, anxiety, and identity and attachment issues. Accordingly, this quantitative study compares the self-rep...

Third Culture Kids (TCK) are children who spend a significant period living outside of their home country but reside only temporarily in a host country. TCKs upbringing can lead to a number of negative psychological outcomes including depression, anxiety, and identity and attachment issues. Accordingly, this quantitative study compares the self-rep...

A high prevalence of mental health problems is a global con- cern. Nearly one billion people globally experience some form of mental illness. A considerable amount of research reports that the experience of mental health varies signifi- cantly by cultures. Service disparity for minority culture groups presents a global mental health challenge today...

Parents of autistic children report higher levels of parenting stress than any other child-related disabilities, with child atypical behaviour being identified as a key contributor to stress. As stress causes many negative health problems, it is important to understand what interventions are re-ported effective to reduce parenting stress in literat...

Communication is an integral part of the relationship between dentist and patient. An anxious patient may feel more understood by the dentist when the communication between them is empathetic. However, dental education seems to under-emphasise the importance of communication between dentists and patients. We suggest an interpersonal aspect of Neuro...

Objectives: Nineteen million people were diagnosed with cancer and almost ten million cancer deaths were recorded worldwide in 2020. The extent of cancer stigmatisation can be as prevalent as 80%. 24% of advanced cancer patients have been diagnosed with an anxiety or depressive disorder. Preliminary observations identified a gap in research of a no...

In the published publication, there was an error regarding the affiliation for “Tomoya Suzuki” [...]

Cardiac Rehabilitation (CR) can improve cardiovascular risk factors, decreases cardiac mortali-ty and promote healthy lifestyle behaviours. However, services remain underutilized by groups of ethnic minorities. The purpose of the study was to identify patients’ personal CR experiences to identify the differences CR makes towards minorities lifestyl...

The COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted the mental health of people in Japan. Healthcare workers (HCWs) especially suffered from poor mental health, engaging with COVID-19 patients while protecting themselves from infection. However, a long-term assessment of their mental health in comparison to the general population remains to be conducted. Thi...

Poor mental health of healthcare students is a cause for concern in many universities. Though previous research has identified mental health shame and self-compassion as critical in this student group, how these variables differ across different healthcare disciplines remains to be evaluated. Healthcare students (n=344; counselling, occupational th...

Globally, awareness of workplace mental health problems has increased rapidly. Employees need to be able to reflect on their wellbeing and ask for help if needed. Previous research has indicated mental health shame (or shame associated with mental health problems) is a barrier toward self-reflection and help-seeking. Our previous research ident...

Parents of autistic children report higher levels of parenting stress than any other child-related disabilities, with child atypical behaviour being identified as a key contributor to stress. As stress causes many negative health problems, it is important to understand what interventions are re-ported effective to reduce parenting stress in literat...

Background: In alignment with the World Health Organization’s Global Breast Cancer Initiative objectives, this rapid review sought to determine the extent to which breast cancer understanding is being researched globally in undergraduate student populations, and review recent findings, to inform policy makers and practitioners on the baseline level...

Introduction An easy-to-access and effective psychotherapy for bereaved informal caregivers has not been established. People with higher self-compassion status tend to have lower bereavement related grief, psychotherapy focused on self-compassion can be promising for this population. This study aimed to examine the feasibility of online self-compas...

Although the importance of feedback has been highlighted in education, innovative practices to improve the quality of feedback remain to be reported. Moreover, traditional text-based feedback often misses the emotional tone of feedback, therefore is susceptive of misunderstanding. This is a cause for concern in many online programmes, in particular...

Special issue in the Journal of Men's Health. Deadline for manuscript submissions: 19 February 2023. https://www.jomh.org/special-issues/1597481118434508800

Kotera Y. (2022). Evaluating relationship between cultures and mental health. The 4th World Mental Health Congress, Online (December 12-13, 2022). Keynote Speech.

Little is known about how the psychological stress of having experienced a natural disaster affects cancer patients. We experienced a patient who was treated with breast cancer after having been stricken by a typhoon, which resulted in significant psychological damage. Treatment strategies should incorporate patients' mental health appropriately af...

Section snippets What is TKS? Taijin Kyofusho (TKS) is identified as a culture-bound syndrome in the DSM-V, which was developed predominantly based on people in WEIRD countries (western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic). TKS is characterised by anxiety about social situations, in particular fear of offence and inadequacy, related to p...

This study aimed to examine the factors correlated with emergency evacuations on patients’ prognosis in hospitals severely affected by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (FDNPP) accident in March 2011, and to recommend measures mitigating potential health risks among them in future disasters. Seven hospitals within a 20-km radius of the FDNP...

UNSTRUCTURED Demand for digital health interventions is increasing in many countries. The use of recorded mental health recovery narratives in digital health interventions is becoming more widespread in clinical practice. Mental health recovery narratives are first-person lived experience accounts of recovery from mental health problems, including...

Demand for digital health interventions is increasing in many countries. The use of recorded mental health recovery narratives in digital health interventions is becoming more widespread in clinical practice. Mental health recovery narratives are first-person lived experience accounts of recovery from mental health problems, including struggles and...

Background: Research suggests that an early connection with nature can benefit wellbeing into adulthood. However, there is less research assessing whether adolescents benefit from formal nature connection interventions such as forest bathing (slow mindful nature walks). This research aimed to assess whether an urban nature connection intervention...

In Germany, more than two-thirds of employees report mental health issues, while in Japan, more than half of the country’s workforce are mentally distressed. Although both countries are socio-economically developed in similar ways, their cultures differ strongly. This article investigates mental health constructs among German and Japanese employees...

Various studies have shown a decrease in well-being and an increase in mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, only a few studies have explored fear, depression, and well-being cross-culturally during this time. Accordingly, we present the results of a cross-cultural study that (1) compares these mental health scores for Germa...

Background: With the advancement of medical technology, the number of Children with Medical Complexity (CMC) has increased. Excursions with the CMC not only encourage children's social participation, but also have been shown to have a positive impact on their caregivers. However, the first-hand experience of the excursions has not yet been evaluat...

While workplace mental health has attracted attention in many countries, work motivation re-mains under-researched. Research identified that work motivation is associated with many or-ganisational positive outcomes including workplace mental health. One well-recognised measure is the Work Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation Scale (WEIMS). Conceptual...

University students in the Czech Republic suffer from a low level of mental wellbeing. Research in other university student populations suggests academic motivation, self-compassion and self-criticism are strongly related to mental wellbeing in other university student populations. Students who are motivated to study, kind towards themselves, and l...

Despite sex addiction research showing the importance of excessive sexual behavior, through shame and narcissism, specific divisions of narcissism remain under-researched. This study examined the moderating effect of overt and covert narcissism on the sex addiction-shame relationship, whilst controlling for self-compassion and self-esteem in a cros...

Academic motivation is an important construct for university students, associated with student wellbeing and academic performance. Students who are motivated tend to feel and perform well. Self-compassion, that is kindness and understanding towards oneself in difficult times, and resilience, an ability to bounce back from difficulties, are also ass...

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate a risk of flooding and landslides among home-care patients, to reveal an extent to which patients require support for evacuation, and to determine whether risk was accurately perceived among the patients. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study targeting the patients who were actively treated at the home-...

Objectives: This study aimed to examine whether and how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the postponement or cancellation of elective surgeries in Japan. Design and setting: A cross-sectional, web-based, self-administered survey was conducted nationwide from August 25 to September 30 2020. We used data from the Japan 'COVID-19 and Society' Int...

As the awareness of mental health increases worldwide, how to improve mental health has begun to be discussed in many countries. Stress is known to cause diverse physical and mental health problems including psychopathologies. On the other hand, our previous studies identified that self-compassion, kindness and understanding towards oneself, is a k...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.838991.].

While the Indonesian higher education has been growing rapidly, poor student mental health including a high level of mental health shame, is a cause for concern in Indonesia. This study aimed to evaluate their mental health, shame and self- compassion. 156 participants completed self-report measures regarding mental health problems (depression, anx...

Mental health peer support (PS) is a relational approach to recovery. Service users are helped through a relationship focused on connection with a PS worker who shares similar experiences. Despite the strong evidence base, the mechanisms of action for mental health PS are under-researched. Several theories have been proposed to explain the mechanis...

Introduction: The global coronavirus pandemic and the governmental restrictions to prevent the virus from spreading have generated anxiety, impacting people's well-being. Former research suggested a positive impact of pets on their owner's well-being, however little research has been conducted within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in which is...

Background : Patients, families, and communities regularly provide feedback about care and treatment received from healthcare services, most of which is positive. The aim of this review was to examine how positive feedback creates change within healthcare settings. Methods : Included documents were empirical studies where the full text is publicly...

Over the last decade many studies have reported on the health benefits of practices derived from Japanese shinrin-yoku grouped under the term “forest therapy”. However, very few mentioned the roles and potential impacts of the guide on participants experience during a forest therapy session. Based on professional experience, this opinion piece aims...

Workplace mental health is a cause for concern in many countries. Globally, 78% of workforce experienced that their mental health was impaired in 2020. In Japan, more than a half of employ-ees are mentally distressed. Previously research has identified that self-compassion (i.e., being kind and understanding towards oneself) and work motivation wer...

While the demand for online education and the diversity of online students have been increasing worldwide, how online students motivate themselves to continuously engage in learning remains to be appraised. Research in the face-to-face contexts reports that academic motivation is central for student success and wellbeing, and the type of motivation...

Background: Parental confidence and attitudes towards a young child’s readiness to receive sex education are varied and complex. There is growing global concern about increased sexual activity among younger children and related discussions about how families address sex education in the home. Aim: The purpose of this study was to identify determin...

Negative attitudes and shame towards mental health problems are detrimental to our mental health. An established scale of measure for mental health attitudes and shame is the Attitudes Towards Mental Health Problems Scale (ATMHPS), comprising 35 items. This comprehensive instrument evaluates Community/Family Attitudes, Community/Family External Sha...

UK depression prevalence is increasing. In this study we appraised the relationships between psychological factors of derailment, self-criticism, self-reassurance and depression, to identify individual differences within the UK general population indicating those at higher risk. Participants completed self-report measures regarding these constructs...

Psychological stress has become a major concern, potentially leading to diverse health problems including psychopathology such as depression and anxiety. Transactional Model of Stress and Coping is an established model, conceptualizing stressful experiences via person- environment relationship. This cross-sectional study aimed to explore the pathwa...

Though the importance of mental health education has been emphasised, how learning about mental health helps the learners’ mental health remains to be evaluated. Accordingly, this study aimed to appraise the mental health effects of online mental health classes in a controlled before-after study with a one-month follow-up. The Depression, Anxiety a...

The number of Indonesian students in higher education has been increasing rapidly. Many Indo-nesian university students, however, report experiencing mental distress. Research in student wellbeing found that self-compassion (i.e. being kind towards oneself in challenging times) and academic engagement (i.e. a commitment and purposeful effort toward...

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) may develop following interpersonal and cumulative traumatic events, usually during early development. In addition to the core PTSD symptom profile, CPTSD presents emotional dysregulation symptoms that can be resistant to conventional treatments. Compassion-focused therapy (CFT) may be an effective int...

Neuro-Linguistic Programming, NLP, has been actively practised for almost a half-century. However, the science of NLP has been stagnant for decades, and ethical challenges in research and practice have been reported. This commentary raises specific ethical challenges NLP encounters, relating to the definition, boundaries with other approaches, and...

Although parents of triplets experience substantial mental distress, research about this increasing population has primarily focused on physical health risks of triplets and mothers, failing to capture the subjective wellbeing of parents. Accordingly, this study aimed to understand first-hand experience of parents of triplets, using thematic analys...

Background Disaster relief operations involve a variety of components of healthcare efforts. The post-disaster recovery is a key component of hospital preparedness. This study aimed to investigate the role of hospital nurses in the disaster area and their challenges during the relief efforts after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. Methods S...

Although mental health is a global agenda today, how cultures relate to mental health differently remains to be evaluated. One cultural dimension that can affect mental health is collectivism vs individualism. In collectivistic societies, groups’ needs are generally prioritised over individuals’, whereas it is the other way around in individualisti...

Citation Xu, A., Rawson, R. & Kotera, Y. (2022). Supporting student success in online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic: Learning design perspective. Interdisciplinary Journal of Student Success.

This study aimed to examine the relationships between mental wellbeing and positive psychological constructs in therapeutic students (psychotherapy and occupational therapy students). The number of therapeutic students has increased recently, however they suffer from poor mental health, which may be improved by potentiating their positive psycholog...

Many people experience feelings of inferiority in their life. The concept of striving to avoid inferiority is a belief associated with the unwanted fear of being overlooked, missing out on opportunities for advancement, and active rejection. This study examined the effect of striving to avoid inferiority on mental health and well-being. We hypothes...