The Mental Health of the Organic Farmer: Psychosocial and Contextual Actors

This issue of Workplace Health & Safety contains a Continuing Nursing Education Module on “The Mental Health of the Organic Farmer: Psychosocial and Contextual Actors” 1.0 contact hour of continuing nursing education credit will be awarded by AAOHN upon successful completion of the posttest and evaluation.

A certificate will be awarded when the following requirements are met by the participant: (1) Participant logs on to the AAOHN LMS website at www.aaohn.org/education/online-learning-center and enrolls in the course ($10 members; $15 non-members); (2) The completed posttest and course evaluation are entered online at http://www.aaohn.org by December 2020; (3) A score of 75% (6 correct answers) is achieved by the participant.

Upon completion of this lesson, the occupational health nurse will be able to:

• Discuss mental health issues of organic farmers and how they may differ from those of traditional farmers.

The American Association of Occupational Health Nurses, Inc. is an Approved Provider of continuing nursing education by the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses, Inc., an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation. The American Association of Occupational Health Nurses, Inc. is additionally approved as a CNE provider by the California Board of Registered Nursing (#CEP9283).

Contact hours received for successful completion of the posttest and evaluation may be used for relicensure, certification, and re-certification.

1. Contributors to high suicide rates among farmers include all of the following EXCEPT

2. Socioeconomic inequity

3. Isolation

4. Poor access to healthcare services

Which of the following findings of organic farmers in the United Kingdom is true?

Organic farmers experienced less stress

Organic farmers were happier than their counterparts

Organic farmers felt no obligations to their surrounding communities

The concepts that drive stress in organic and traditional farmers are the same

Most participants had how many years of organic farming experience?

10 - 20 years

6 - 9 years

1 - 5 years

Less than 1 year

Which of the following is an example of an important social factor that emerged in the study?

The stress associated with being both the proprietor and a worker on the farm

Maintaining a relationship is difficult

Farmers noted the benefits of working together within their communities

A sense of history that a participant stated was, “unbelievable”

Personal attributes that were mentioned that may be beneficial in managing stress include_________________________ and _____________________________.

Positive outlook, pride

Philosophy of life, sense of community

Socializing, environmental respon-sibility

Personal relationships, knowledge sharing

Contextual factors that emerged as important to the participants included lack of control over weather conditions, culture and history, social and environmental responsibility, and _________.

Availability of products

Pricing

Regulations

Employee safety

Activities in this study that the participants reported as positive for their mental health included those characterized as________________________.

Revenue producing

Community building

Resource saving

Worker developing

All of the following were limitations of the study except

Small sample size

Participants drawn from area near urban center

Study was specifically designed to elicit mental health issues

Participants were drawn from a small geographic area