Foster Well-being Research Articles

Know and use your personal strengths! A Spanish validation of the strengths knowledge and use scales and their relationship with meaningful work and work-related well-being.

Research in the field of work and organizational psychology increasingly highlights the role of meaningful work as a protector of well-being at work. This study tests the role of strengths knowledge and use as new pathways through which meaningful work may have a positive effect on work engagement and mental health. Study 1 and Study 2 report the validation of the Spanish Strengths Use and Knowledge Scales respectively, with samples of N = 617 (Study 1) and N = 365 (Study 2) employees. Study 3 tests the mediating effects of strengths use and knowledge in a model with different work-related constructs in another sample of N = 798 employees. Findings from Studies 1 and 2 indicate that the instruments offer adequate evidence of reliability and validity. Results from Study 3 revealed that strengths knowledge is a mediator in the relationship between meaningful work and strengths use. Findings also confirmed the mediating roles of strengths use in the relationship between meaningful work and work engagement, and between meaningful work and mental health. This study highlights the ability to be aware of and apply signature strengths as effective and novel pathways to foster well-being at work through the cultivation of meaningful work.

The relationship among psychological distress, well-being and excessive social media use during the outbreak of Covid-19: A longitudinal investigation.

The corona pandemic has been a life event causing negative consequences on mental health. Mental health consists of positive and negative dimensions. The present longitudinal study investigated how positive and negative dimensions changed over 15 months after the Covid-19 outbreak. Potential changes of excessive social media use (SMU) and its relationship with mental health were also investigated. Data (N = 189) on distress (measured overall and as depression, anxiety, and stress), well-being and excessive SMU were collected at three time points (baseline, BL; 3-month follow-up, FU1; 15-month follow-up, FU2) via online surveys in Italy. Repeated analyses of variance were used to test differences among the three measurement time points. Mediational models were applied. Distress did not change over time, well-being decreased and excessive SMU increased significantly. The relationship between distress at BL and excessive SMU at FU2 was significant (total effect, c: p < .001). The relationship between distress at BL and well-being at FU1 (a: p < .001), and between well-being at FU1and excessive SMU at FU2 (b: p = .004) was significant. Including FU1 well-being in the model, the relationship between distress at BL and excessive SMU at FU2 was not significant (direct effect, c': p = .078). The indirect effect (ab) was significant. Well-being mediated the relationship between baseline stress and excessive SMU. Enhanced stress may reduce well-being which, in turn, increases the risk of excessive SMU. This emphasizes the urgency of programmes that foster well-being, especially during stressful events such as a pandemic.

How learning gardens foster well-being and development through the promotion of purposeful play in early childhood and beyond

ABSTRACT Play is essential to learning and development in the early childhood years. Young children experiment with new skills through play, which supports the development of new competencies and furthers cognitive development. Nontraditional learning spaces such as teaching and learning gardens provide excellent opportunities for children to engage in purposeful play that supports their well-being, cognitive and identity development, and promotes positive emotional experiences. Self-determination theory, cognitive psychology, and developmental psychology offer useful frameworks for understanding how play in school gardens can improve motivation and promote meaningful learning in the early childhood years and beyond. Benefits reported in the literature of incorporating school gardens into teaching and learning experiences include opportunities for learners to satisfy the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, increased positive emotions, opportunities to renew cognitive and emotional energies, and tangible evidence of efforts linked to initiative and industry of students who care for plants and animals in the garden. Recommendations include long-term planning for funding school garden programs and supporting teachers in incorporating purposeful play in the garden into learning.

Protocol for the Open Sky School: a two-arm clustered randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of a nature-based intervention on mental health of elementary school children

BackgroundThis article outlines the protocol for a trial to test the effectiveness of a nature-based intervention called Open Sky School to reduce mental health problems among elementary school children. Experimental studies show that contact with nature (e.g. walks in parks) improve mental health. A growing number of teachers have been applying outdoor education within the regular school curriculum and evidence suggests that such teaching methods could improve students’ mental health but a randomized controlled trial has never been conducted.MethodsA two-arm clustered randomized controlled trial will be conducted in elementary schools across Québec, Canada. Following informed consent by teachers, parents and students, schools will be randomly assigned 1:1 to the intervention or the control group with a total of 2500 5-6th grade students and 100 teachers expected to participate. The intervention will take place outdoors in a green-space (2 h per week for 12 weeks) and include a toolkit of 30 activities to foster well-being (e.g. mindfulness) and academic competencies (e.g. mathematics). Questionnaires will be administered to teachers and students before, immediately after and 3 months after the intervention. The primary outcome will be reductions of mental health problems in children from pre-to-post test (Social Behavior Questionnaire: self and teacher reports). Secondary outcomes include depression, positive and negative affect, nature connectedness, and pro-environmental behaviors among children. We will explore, immediate benefits on teacher’s well-being and positive and negative affect and sustained benefits among students at 3 months follow-up. For the primary outcome, we will explore moderators including child’s sex, child’s disability status, the green-space of neighbourhoods, the school’s socio-economic position and teacher’s experience.DiscussionIn conducting the first randomized controlled trial of the Open Sky School, our results could provide empirical evidence on the effectiveness of nature-based interventions in reducing mental health problems among elementary school children.Trial registrationThis study was registered with clinicaltrials.gov: NCT05662436 on December 22, 2022.

Implementation and Outcomes of the Trauma Ambassadors Program: A Case Study of Trauma-Informed Youth Leadership Development.

Community-based programs serve a critical need for vulnerable youth and families. In recent years, researchers and practitioners have urged programs to adopt a trauma-informed care (TIC) approach to address adversity in young people's lives. The purpose of this article is to describe the implementation and outcomes of the Trauma Ambassador (TA) Program, a pilot youth leadership program guided by a community-university partnership that utilized a TIC approach in an underserved East North Philadelphia neighborhood. Fourteen youth engaged in interactive trainings to build their understanding of trauma and develop practical tools to support encounters with individuals with trauma histories. Focus groups and individual interviews were conducted to better understand program implementation and outcomes. Rich data emerged that identifies a myriad of ways that youth and their community might benefit from a program like the one described. The program successfully impacted participants, as TAs recognized their own trauma and were motivated to help others who may have trauma histories. This program provided quality youth development experiences, particularly with respect to trauma-informed care, and results support taking a holistic, healing-centered approach to foster well-being for youth and adult mentors.

Restoring a Royal Fishpond with Native Hawaiian Youth: Applying Traditional Ecological Knowledge to Foster Well-Being and Relational Virtuosity

Abstract: Place-based education that incorporates traditional ecological knowledge is a potential source of psychological and emotional well-being for indigenous youth. Our research explores the connection between place-based cultural education and well-being among Native Hawaiian youth as they engage in restoring a royal Native Hawaiian fishpond, Loko Iʻa Pāʻaiau. We collected data from ten Native Hawaiian high school participants over six months including survey measures, pre- and post-on emotions and values after each weekly session at the fishpond, as well as pre-and post- focus group sessions. The quantitative data revealed gains in positive emotions and mental states, with happiness and focus being the most salient. Phenomenological coding of the qualitative results revealed five overarching themes in the values-emotion interface: 1) valuing the importance of Pāʻaiau; 2) valuing kuleana (reciprocal responsibility) and feeling a sense of accomplishment; 3) valuing sacred land and cultivating humility; 4) valuing and strengthening 'ohana (family) and feeling sense of belonging; and 5) valuing Pāʻaiau as a healing place and feeling peaceful and happy. Findings support providing Indigenous youth, especially Native Hawaiians, with place-based traditional ecological knowledge and biocultural opportunities to promote well-being, character, and identity development.

The actual and ideal indoor soundscape for work, relaxation, physical and sexual activity at home: A case study during the COVID-19 lockdown in London.

The period of home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic made the importance of a high-quality surrounding environment even more evident than before. Several studies have been carried out to assess the (negative) impacts of noise on annoyance, particularly whilst working from home (WFH). The present study takes a step further by (1) investigating the positive and negative impacts of the "actual" acoustic environment on a range of activities, i.e., WFH, relaxation, physical, and sexual activities, and (2) identifying the characteristics of an "ideal" indoor soundscape. The study is based on the qualitative analysis of verbal descriptions collected from open-ended questions included in a survey administered in January 2021 to 464 respondents living in London, during the COVID-19 lockdown. The range of impacts in the actual scenario varied from no effect on task execution, to disruption, distraction, concern of disturbing others or being heard. Positive impacts included support of concentration, relaxation, motivation, freedom of sound expression, feeling of being connected to the surroundings and comforted by the presence of others, according to mechanisms described in the study. Negative appraisal could trigger coping strategies (e.g., controlling windows, playing music, wearing headphones) and behavioural changes (e.g., lowering the volume of the voice or music, muting oneself during call, changing workout type) that could in turn limit or enhance the freedom of behaviour, affect or foster wellbeing. Negative impacts were most frequently reported on WFH (by 55% of the participants), followed by relaxation activities (40.6%), sexual activities (30.1%), and home workout (20.1%). The ideal soundscape was described as a quiet, well-sound insulated environment, which guarantees access to positive sounds (i.e., natural sounds, music, urban background), thus resulting in privacy, intimacy, and a place where to express themselves without noise-related constraints. The study complements literature findings on housing design directions in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, by providing further evidence on the impacts of poor sound insulation at home, the potential benefits of nature-based solutions for positive indoor soundscapes, and opportunities for an activity-based design of domestic environments, inclusive of a broader set of home uses and household compositions.

Square Dancing as a Leisure Pursuit Connecting to Meaning in Life among Taiwanese Middle-Aged Adults

Identifying predictors of meaning in life (MIL) among middle-aged adults is important to promote their well-being. To inform efforts to foster well-being for middle-aged adults, the purpose of this study was to examine whether transcendent experiences mediate the relationships between two types of leisure social support (leisure instrumental support and leisure emotional support) and MIL in this population. In total, 236 middle-aged adults participated in the study. We used in-person surveys to collect data on leisure instrumental support, leisure emotional support, transcendent experiences, and MIL as well as analyzed data conducting structural equation modeling. Results indicated that high levels of leisure instrumental support predicted high levels of transcendent experiences; high levels of transcendent experiences predicted high levels of MIL; and high levels of leisure instrumental support and leisure emotional support predicted high levels of MIL. We discuss implications of these results in terms of facilitating MIL experienced by middle-aged adults.

Longitudinal associations of relationship support and strain and internalized homophobia with mental health among middle-aged and older gay and bisexual men

Objectives: Mental health concerns (e.g. depression, anxiety) that negatively impact gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM) persist over the life course and into old age, but less is known about potential contributors to GBMSM’s mental health. Close relationships can be a source of risk or resilience from stress, exerting direct relationships on mental health, and may mediate well-established associations between minority stress and mental health. This study examined whether primary partner relationship support and strain were uniquely associated with, and mediated the association between internalized homophobia, and mental health among older GBMSM. Methods: GBMSM (N = 517, M age = 60) from the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study, who were in primary relationships with men, provided self-report data at four timepoints. We used multilevel modeling to examine longitudinal associations among relationship support and strain and internalized homophobia with depression and anxiety. Results: Relationship strain, but not support, was positively associated with mental health concerns longitudinally. There was a significant, positive indirect effect of internalized homophobia on depression and anxiety through strain, but no support. Internalized homophobia was positively associated with relationship strain, which was positively associated with mental health symptoms longitudinally. Conclusions: Relationship strain was associated with depression and anxiety longitudinally among middle-aged and older GBMSM and mediated associations of internalized homophobia with mental health. The role of partner support warrants further investigation. Mental health interventions are critically needed for older GBMSM and, for partnered GBMSM, should include strategies for reducing relationship strain to foster well-being.

A multilevel analysis of the relationship between leaders’ experiential avoidance and followers’ well-being

Experiential avoidance is defined as a process involving excessive negative evaluations of difficult or unwanted feelings, thoughts, and sensations, an unwillingness to remain in contact with and express these experiences, and habitual attempts to avoid or control them. Experiential avoidance is closely associated with maladaptive functioning. Although the ability to connect with internal experiences has been considered an important element of effective leadership, this assumption has not yet been empirically tested. On the basis of the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy model of experiential avoidance and the propositions of leadership models (e.g., transformational and authentic leadership) that characterize leadership as an emotion-related process, we examined the relationship between leaders’ experiential avoidance and their followers’ well-being in a sample of leader-follower triads. Well-being outcomes were subjective happiness, purpose in life, and job satisfaction. We also tested the mediating roles of followers’ basic psychological need satisfaction and need frustration in this relationship. Multilevel mediation model analyses suggested that followers’ psychological need frustration but not need satisfaction mediated the relationship between leaders’ experiential avoidance and followers’ well-being outcomes. Thus, a rigid attitude toward one’s internal experiences as a leader is a risk factor for followers’ well-being because leaders with such attitudes may pay little attention to their followers and give rise to need frustration in their followers. Organizational efforts to increase leaders’ flexibility in dealing with negative experiences can help foster well-being among both leaders and their followers.

Regaining power: How feelings of exclusion during COVID-19 are associated with radicalism among critics of containment policies.

Past experimental research has shown that social exclusion can be linked with radicalism. During the COVID-19 pandemic, feelings of social isolation and loneliness rose, just like protests and violence against national anti-COVID-19 measures did. Based on these observations, we hypothesized that feelings of exclusion induced by measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 were associated with radicalism intentions to illegally and violently fight COVID-19-related regulations among critics of the containment policies (Hypothesis 1). Moreover, we expected that radicalism intentions against COVID-19-related regulations fortified needs deprived by social exclusion (Hypothesis 2). Studying a sample of individuals who opposed the measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 (N = 171), we found evidence for both hypotheses: Results revealed that feelings of social exclusion induced by COVID-19 containment measures predicted radicalism intentions. Moreover, the relationship between exclusion and radicalism was associated with fortifying power issues. Political opinion did not moderate these effects. These data replicate the exclusion-radicalism link in the COVID-19 crisis and add one more factor that may have promoted radical developments during that time. Fortifying feelings of power, radicalism appeared to foster well-being, though at a high political price.

Emotion-Focused Mobile App for Promoting Self-Compassion, Self-Protection, and Self-Criticism.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our daily lives and restricted access to traditional psychological interventions. Hence there is an immediate and growing demand for accessible and scalable mental health solutions. Emotion-focused training for self-compassion and self-protection was developed and distributed using mobile phone technologies, and its effectiveness was tested. The available research sample consisted of 97 participants with a mean age of 26.06 years and a standard deviation of 10.53. Participants using the mobile app underwent a 14-day program aimed at reducing self-criticism while increasing self-compassion and self-protection. Pre- and post-measurements were collected. The results showed a statistically significant medium effect on self-compassion, self-criticism, and self-protection performance and a significant small effect on self-protection distress. The finding that a 14-day mobile app was able to foster well-being in the form of self-compassion, self-protection, and self-criticism is promising. It indicates the potential for individuals to obtain help through the use of remote tools such as MHapps for a fraction of the usual cost, at their own pace, and without other restrictions.

A Qualitative Exploration of How Transgender and Non-binary Adolescents Define and Identify Supports

This qualitative study explored how 249 transgender and non-binary (TNB) adolescents (ages 14–18) described salient supports in their lives, and ways in which key social-ecological contexts could better support TNB adolescents’ wellbeing. Participants were recruited through social media, and completed online surveys; all study procedures were approved by the Boston University Institutional Review Board. Most (84.7%) participants identified as White, and as sexual minorities (96.4%). Modified consensual qualitative research (CQR-M) methods were used to examine TNB adolescents’ responses to two questions: “In your life, which people, if any, would you describe as most supportive, and why?” and “What can individuals/groups within families, schools, and communities do to best support the well-being of transgender and non-binary adolescents?” Results indicated that the most common source of support for TNB participants was peers, followed by family members. Participants also highlighted the centrality of supportive environments that offer access to resources, as well as support derived through policies and practices that reduce stigma. Collectively, results have implications for how individuals and systems can foster wellbeing among TNB adolescents.

From surviving to thriving: Strategies to cultivate individual and organizational resilience in the health care workforce.

In this president's column, the author notes that resilience has been identified as a strategy to mitigate the triumvirate of burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral distress. Once viewed as an innate personality trait, there has been an increased focus on the cultivation of resilience among health care providers, with attention to evolving educational models depending on the career stage of the provider and interventions for interprofessional health care workers. Strategies to develop the "7Cs" of individual resilience, which were initially applied to children and adolescents, have begun to be applied to physicians. If we are to really celebrate our frontline workers, we need to not only promote their personal wellbeing, but also make conscious efforts to restructure the environments and health care systems in which they work. Only through thoughtful and comprehensive interventions-targeting both the individual and the institution-can we truly foster well-being. Such efforts can help move our workforce and teams from the constant state of merely surviving that they have been in the past several years to thriving and finding joy again in their work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

"Was Definitely Different Because They Were Kids": Caring for Patients From a School Shooting.

Trauma nurses may experience secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, and burnout as their clinical roles expose them to patients with traumatic injuries. Because traumatic events described as being most stressful for nurses involve sudden death or children and adolescents, multicasualty, school-associated shooting events are likely to be particularly stressful for nurses who care for the affected patients. This research examined the psychosocial effects of caring for patients in an inpatient trauma unit following a multicasualty, school-associated shooting event. This research was guided by a qualitative case series approach, a theory of secondary traumatic stress, and the compassion fatigue resilience model. Registered nurses who provided care in the trauma unit of a Level I trauma center to patients who were injured during a multicasualty, school-associated shooting event in the Southeastern United States were invited to participate. The three themes identified by this research were (a) innocence of the patients, (b) trajectories of increased emotions, and (c) processing emotional stressors. Nurses reported the benefits of peer support and provided recommendations to increase the efficacy of formal debriefing sessions. Nurses value self-care routines and peer support as coping mechanisms to foster well-being following exposure to traumatic events. Hospitals should encourage active participation in timely critical incident stress debriefings and promote the use of employee assistance services to support nursing staff after these events.

The association between social capital indicators and psychological distress in Catalan adolescents.

According to the WHO, globally, one in seven adolescents experiences a mental disorder, being in a detrimental situation toward educational achievement, social cohesion, future health and life chances. Calls to identify risk and resilience factors to develop effective preventive actions have been made. Following a systemic approach, we conducted a cross-sectional study on the relationship between social capital and psychological distress in a sample of Catalan adolescents in Barcelona, taking into account a range of other relevant aspects at different levels influencing mental health, including gender, age, migrant status, family background, lifestyle factors, body mass index, and self-rated health. Data were collected through validated questionnaires in December 2016 from 646 of 14- to 18-year-old adolescents from three public and private high schools in Barcelona (Spain). Data analysis included descriptive analysis, a correlational study and logistic regression to obtain the odds ratio for social capital indicators to be associated with psychological distress. Our results suggest that reporting higher levels of family support and higher levels of teacher-student trust reduce the likelihood of suffering psychological distress. Higher levels of neighborhood informal control were associated with mental health, but a possible detrimental effect cannot be ruled out. Being a girl, reporting low self-rated health or higher media use was also associated with higher likelihood of psychological distress. Current results may encourage interventions that focus on social capital as a means to reduce psychological distress and foster well-being in youth.

The intellectual whakapapa informing the New Zealand Drama Curriculum

Underpinning drama education in New Zealand is the desire to improve the lives of individuals, communities and societies by catalysing embodied learning in and through the art form of theatre. Learning in drama is intended to foster well-being, social cohesion and active citizenship. Put another way, drama education in New Zealand has always been about more than training actors for the theatre stage. It has been about fostering the development of actors who engage in, on and with the world. This determination has led to the particular pedagogical and curricular response that frames how drama is taught in New Zealand.&#x0D; In drama education in New Zealand we have focused for a generation on working practically to explore the nature of drama as a meaning making tool. Students not only study theatre by passively watching, they actively partake in framed fictional worlds and reflect on these embodied experiences. By engaging students in dramatic encounters, we argue drama education bears the potential to engage in critical and creative engagement with pivotal social issues in the real world (Anderson &amp; O’Connor, 2015). The nature of the meaning making has seen a deliberate privileging of non-naturalistic forms of drama presentation and representation. Progression is understood in the curriculum as moving from exploration of narrative through imagined and social play at junior primary to understanding how to use conventions as dramatic structuring devices (Ministry of Education, 2007). This can be understood as a conventions approach (CA) to drama education. In this article we consider the pedagogical and theatre traditions that informed the New Zealand curriculum to contextualise the planned curriculum refresh in 2023.

The Past, Present, and Future of Subsistence Marketplaces: Broadening Inclusion and Diversity

As the 2022 Academy of Management conference (“Creating a Better World”) call for submissions notes: “there seems to be a growing awareness of the vital role of business organizations, managers, and stakeholders in tackling societal challenges including environmental sustainability; inter-generational trade-offs where future generations cannot make their voices heard today; and issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion” (AOM 2022). While the issues of poverty and inclusive management practices have been examined as management topics for decades, the global grand challenges of health pandemic, environmental sustainability, and worsening economic inequality have sharpened the need for a more scholarly-based exploration of what we might refer to “subsistence marketplaces” [SM]. Since the publication of the seminal edited volume (Viswanathan and Rosa 2007), which raised awareness of the need for a “bottom-up” approach to study the broad range of low-income consumers, entrepreneurs, communities and marketplaces around the world (Viswanathan, 2021), scholars from a wide range of management and social science disciplines have advanced our understanding of these communities. By “subsistence”, we are referring to the wide range of low-income communities—from extreme poverty to those at the cusp between low and lower-middle income. It essentially captures people and communities barely meeting basic conditions for living. We are also using the term “marketplaces” in the broadest and most diverse sense, meaning where goods, services, information, and ideas are exchanged, versus a meaning that restricts the focus to a physical marketplace. Such marketplaces captures different domains of subsistence, such as health, nutrition, education, and livelihood, different geographies, and different modes, such as physical and virtual. Over the past 15 years, a plethora of SM studies has advanced some foundational insights on how subsistence marketplaces function and how social innovations and organizations can foster well-being in subsistence communities (Gau et al, 2014; Sridharan et al, 2017; Steinfield and Holt, 2019). At the same time, given the global and diverse stakeholders involved in the subsistence marketplaces field, there remain important under representations in literature both in terms of geographical contexts, such as sub-Saharan Africa and transition economies, as well as substantive topics such as the intersectional disadvantages stemming from gender and disability. The purpose of this panel symposium is, therefore, to engage a group of panelists in a moderated and interactive discussion of (1) how best to define and understand subsistence marketplaces as a field in 2022; (2) what are some critical insights that could improve organizational theories about the work of organizations with these communities and best practices; (3) what are important under-represented or missing topics and stakeholders in the subsistence marketplaces literature and how best can scholars fill those gaps; (4) what might comparative analyses of subsistence marketplaces across geographies or institutional environments look like and (5) how is subsistence marketplaces as a field of study changing amidst the global pandemic, environmental sustainability, and other global grand challenges.

Promoting Student Teachers’ Well-Being

Abstract. Student teachers’ well-being is particularly important in times of teacher shortage. To prevent student dropout and promote students’ well-being, demands and resources within university teacher education need to be identified. Demands like workload or time pressure can lead to emotional exhaustion in the long-term, while resources like emotional support may foster well-being. By conducting a quantitative, longitudinal study on 903 student teachers from German universities, we investigate the relationship between the emotional support of peers (as a resource) and emotional exhaustion (an indicator of well-being). In addition, we conducted a qualitative study to analyze demands as possible reasons for dropout during teacher education. Latent change score models indicate that emotional exhaustion first increases and then slightly decreases over the course of three semesters. Emotional support by peers remains stable over time. The bivariate latent change model suggests that social support is not a predictor of later emotional exhaustion. The qualitative study analyzed three main dropout intentions: performance problems, lack of study motivation, and study conditions. Especially study conditions at university can be adjusted and act as a resource to increase students’ well-being.

A qualitative investigation of the perceptions of complementary and alternative medicine among adults in Hawaiʻi

BackgroundComplementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is defined as a group of diverse medical and healthcare practices outside of conventional medicine modalities. The use of CAM is steadily increasing despite gaps in the scientific evidence supporting its use and the challenges of its regulation and integration into conventional healthcare practices. In this context, perceptions concerning CAM become important. The purpose of this study is to identify the perceptions of CAM among adult residents of Hawaiʻi.MethodsTwo researchers conducted audio-recorded interviews at the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa (UHM) campus. Participants were over the age of 18, spoke English fluently, and self-identified as Hawaiʻi residents. Interviews were conducted to the point of data saturation and audio recordings were transcribed verbatim. Researchers collaboratively developed a codebook and used NVivo 12 to analyze transcripts. New codes were added as required. Inter-rater reliability was determined by calculating Cohen’s kappa coefficient. Key themes were identified by both researchers individually and then discussed and evaluated together.ResultsParticipants were mostly female, white, and affiliated with UHM. Perceptions were categorized as positive, negative, and neutral. The majority of participants had positive perceptions of CAM with few reporting negative perceptions. The positive perceptions were related to CAM’s perceived effectiveness, the desirability of CAM compared to conventional medicine, and CAM’s ability to foster well-being. Negative perceptions were attributed to the lack of scientific evidence and ineffective outcomes of CAM use. Neutral perceptions of CAM related to its safety and natural characteristics.ConclusionsThe study found mainly positive perceptions of CAM among Hawaiʻi residents. Use of CAM is on the rise despite CAM lacking robust empirical evidence demonstrating efficacy across various medical conditions. With insufficient data and understanding of current medical literature, CAM users place themselves at risk for harmful herb-herb and herb-drug interactions. These findings have implications for healthcare providers of both conventional medicine and CAM traditions.