April 09, 2024
Susan Long, Andrea Goreta ’25 publish paper in International Research Journal
Andrea Goreta ’25 and Affiliated Scholar in Psychology Susan Long collaborated on a paper that was recently published in Psi Chi Journal of International Research.
The paper, “Mental Health Attitudes in Bosnia & Herzegovina,” was a project funded by the James Rocco Scholarship.
Goreta, a double major in psychology and business with an accounting emphasis, was interested in investigating mental health attitudes in her home country of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Long agreed to be Goreta’s mentor for the Rocco scholarship application, and they began their research in May 2022.
The pair investigated the sales of medications for the nervous system across 10 years in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They also sent out a survey to collect data on people’s attitudes toward and awareness of mental health in the country with the goal of comparing data across the different nationalities in the region.
“We found differences in mental health attitudes between Serbs, Bosniaks, and Croats, but would like to have more representative sample in the future research,” Goreta said. “We found that better mental health attitudes existed among people with higher education levels and people who were younger. There was a negative correlation between age and awareness.”
Goreta was able to complete her research while visiting home for the summer, which gave her an advantage when it came to distributing the survey and collecting data. The article is available to read for free.