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Social contact mode and 15-year episodic memory trajectories in older adults with and without hearing loss: findings from the English longitudinal study of ageing
Get PDFObjectives: Frequent social contact benefits cognition in later life although evidence is lacking on the potential relevance of the modes chosen by older adults, including those living with hearing loss, for interacting with others in their social network.
Method: 11,418 participants in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing provided baseline information on hearing status and social contact mode and frequency of use. Multilevel growth curve models compared episodic memory (immediate and delayed recall) at baseline and longitudinally in participants who interacted frequently (offline only or offline and online combined), compared to infrequently, with others in their social network.
Results: Frequent offline (B=0.23; SE=0.09) and combined offline and online (B=0.71; SE=0.09) social interactions predicted better episodic memory after adjustment for multiple confounders. We observed positive, longitudinal associations between combined offline and online interactions and episodic memory in participants without hearing loss (B=0.50, SE=0.11) but not with strictly offline interactions (B=0.01, SE=0.11). In those with hearing loss, episodic memory was positively related to both modes of engagement (offline only: B=0.79, SE=0.20; combined online and offline: B=1.27, SE=0.20). Sensitivity analyses confirmed the robustness of these findings.
Discussion: Supplementing conventional social interactions with online communication modes may help older adults, especially those living with hearing loss, sustain, and benefit cognitively from, personal relationships
A proposed framework for developing user-centred mobile healthcare applications for the biggest annual mass gathering (Hajj) post COVID-19
Get PDFThe Hajj pilgrimage being the largest annual mass gathering globally with two to three million participants from over 180 counties, will remain a high priority for diseases surveillance for future epidemics or any other international public health emergencies with rapid scalability. This paper highlights the importance of monitoring mass gatherings during a pandemic and how mHealth applications can reduce the burden on health facilities during a mass gathering and tackle future infectious diseases outbreaks. The paper also highlights the importance of developing a user-centred application when designing for a diverse group of users with a shared purpose. As a result, a framework has been proposed to update the current applications or design and develop future mobile health applications. The framework has been developed based on the rationale and evidence found in the literature
An interpretative phenomenological analysis exploring the influence of professional identity on medical doctors’ perceived wellbeing
Get PDFAim: This qualitative paper aims to develop an understanding of how professional identity influences doctors’ perceived wellbeing. Material and method: A qualitative approach using an interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith and Osborn, 2015) was implemented to examine the experience of six tenured physicians. Semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions allowed for in-depth investigation of the ways the interviewees make sense of their experiences and feelings, and the meaning they assign to the concept of their professional identity. Results: Three superordinate theme clusters representing professional identity, personal identity, and sensemaking processes were identified from the data. The professional identity theme focused on data about doctors’ characteristics such as benevolence and a sense of commitment. The personal identity theme distinguished different ways the participants thought and felt about themselves. The sensemaking theme, however, referred to the experience by the professionals’ cognitive processing and cognitive dissonance. The results suggest that professional identity had a substantial influence on physicians’ perceived wellbeing. Conclusion: This research offers theoretical implications for approaching the study of physicians’ professional identity, and practical implications which may imply that the development of professional identity can be of significant value for doctors’ positive wellbeing. However, some dimensions of physicians’ identity, such as commitment or self-concept, may contribute to a resultant negative affect. These considerations should be taken into account in future medical students’ education programmes.
Cel: Celem niniejszej pracy jest zrozumienie, w jaki sposób tożsamość zawodowa wpływa na samopoczucie lekarzy. Materiał i metoda: Podejście jakościowe wykorzystujące interpretacyjną analizę fenomenologiczną (Smith i Osborn, 2015) zostało zastosowane w celu przeanalizowania doświadczeń sześciu lekarzy z długim stażem pracy. Częściowo ustrukturyzowane wywiady pogłębione pozwoliły na dogłębne zbadanie, w jaki sposób respondenci rozumieją swoje doświadczenia i uczucia oraz jakie znaczenie przypisują koncepcji swojej tożsamości zawodowej. Wyniki: Na podstawie danych zidentyfikowano trzy tematy nadrzędne, reprezentujące tożsamość zawodową, tożsamość osobistą i procesy tworzenia sensu. Temat tożsamości zawodowej koncentrował się wokół danych dotyczących cech lekarzy, takich jak życzliwość i poczucie zaangażowania. Temat tożsamości osobistej wyróżniał różne sposoby, w jakie uczestnicy myśleli i oceniali siebie. Wątek tworzenia sensu nawiązywał do doświadczenia związanego z przetwarzaniem poznawczym i dysonansem poznawczym lekarzy. Wyniki sugerują, że tożsamość zawodowa miała istotny wpływ na postrzegane samopoczucie lekarzy. Wnioski: Niniejsze badanie ma zarówno implikacje teoretyczne – ważne dla badania tożsamości zawodowej lekarzy – jak i praktyczne – jego rezultaty sugerują, że rozwój tożsamości zawodowej może pozytywnie oddziaływać na samopoczucie lekarzy. Jednak niektóre wymiary tożsamości lekarzy, takie jak zaangażowanie czy samoocena, mogą negatywnie wpływać na ich samopoczucie. Aspekty te należy uwzględnić w przyszłych programach kształcenia studentów medycyny
Air Pollution Is a Human Problem: Mary Catterall’s campaign for clean air in Leeds, England
No full textDr Mary Catterall (1922–2015), doctor and sculptor, script and medical advisor to the film, It Takes Your Breath Away, became concerned with lung health when she was appointed Senior Registrar in Respiratory Medicine at Leeds General Infirmary, England in 1960. The film won a Silver Medal at the British Medical Association annual film competition in 1964, which welcomed films from professional and amateur filmmakers, only specifying that medical excellence was paramount.[1] It is a work of “hidden” cinema: it was devised specifically for professional medical audiences, in this case, healthcare personnel, and was not intended to be distributed to the wider public. This essay looks at the backstory to the film and how Catterall became involved both personally and professionally by exploring her archives, held at Wellcome Collection where she deposited them in 2009, as well as other library and archival sources
Managing fever in children: developing guidelines that turn evidence into practice
No full textThe importance of evidence-based practice has been emphasised in nursing in recent years. However, the process by which research evidence is turned into clinical recommendations is not always clear. This is important because understanding and communicating the rationale for clinical decisions is a vital part of the role of the children’s nurse. This article discusses the methods by which nurses can turn evidence into practice using a framework devised by the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations (GRADE) Working Group. The article uses the treatment of fever in children as an example of how nurses can apply the GRADE framework to ensure that their practice is evidence-based
An introduction to critical thinking, academic writing and Harvard referencing
Get PDFIn this chapter, you will be introduced to the academic skills and strategies required to succeed in your studies. The chapter begins with an explanation of critical thinking and characteristics you would need to develop in order to become a critical thinker. It then introduces you to academic writing and the application of critical thinking. It will also provide tips on structuring written work and and some key principles to guide you in successful writing at university. The last section of this chapter provides an explanation on the concept of plagiarism and the importance of avoiding it; it will also introduce you to the essential art of Harvard referencing, with detailed examples on how to acknowledge a variety of sources
Geopolitical issues in human computer interaction
Get PDFThis workshop will explore and discuss geopolitical issues in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) as a field of knowledge and practice. These issues are mainly seen at two levels: (1) on discourses surrounding motivations and value of HCI as a sociotechnical field, and (2) on discourses surrounding concepts of HCI diffusion, maturity and diversity as articulated by global and local knowledge networks. Since the beginning of HCI, discussions of democracy have been around. It may even be fair to say that the key notion of usability aims to support the citizens of a democratic society. Obviously, exactly how HCI should do this remains open for discussion. HCI has several roots deep in military needs from the world wars of the 20th century. It was also born out of the sociotechnical traditions with its emancipatory ambitions, aiming at creating conditions for supporting human agency that facilitates the realization of people’s needs and potential. There’s an inherent contradiction between these traditions. Thus, we’re interested in exploring the following question: how to reconcile such diverse discourses as military power and emancipatory ambitions in a geopolitical analysis of HCI research and associated discourses? Moreover, the diffusion of HCI as field of knowledge and practice is dominated by political and post-colonial discourses that pervade local and global knowledge networks shaping what is considered useful and relevant research and practice. In this workshop we understand these issues as geopolitical in nature and aim to trace the cultural and sociotechnical dynamics that construct the field of HCI
Knowledge, attitude, and practice of physicians regarding vaccinations in Yerevan, Armenia: a case study of HPV
Get PDFThis paper highlights the low levels of vaccine coverage and high levels of reported vaccination hesitancy in Yerevan, Armenia that present profound challenges to the control of disease through routine vaccination programmes. We draw on investigations of hesitancy towards the introduction of new vaccines, using the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil as a case study, to interrogate underlying challenges to vaccine acceptance. We analyse primary data from the introduction of Gardasil, first used in Armenia in 2017, to investigate how levels of medical knowledge amongst physicians in 20 health facilities in Yerevan, Armenia regarding vaccine science, influence attitudes towards the introduction a newly developed vaccine. A questionnaire- based cross-sectional study was completed by 348 physicians between December 2017 and September 2018. The responding physicians displayed a respectable level of knowledge and awareness regarding vaccination with respect to some characteristics (e.g. more than 81% knew that HPV infection was commonly asymptomatic, 73% knew that HPV infection was implicated in most cervical cancers and 87% knew that cervical cancer is the most prevalent cancer amongst women) but low knowledge and poor understanding of other key issues such as the age at which women were most likely to develop cervical cancer (only 15% answered correctly); whether or not the vaccine should be administered to people who had already been infected (27% answered correctly) and whether sexually-active young people should be treated for infection before vaccination (26% answered correctly). The study suggests that drivers of vaccine hesitancy are complex and may not be consistent from vaccine to vaccine. The Armenian healthcare sector may need to provide additional training, awareness-raising and educational activities alongside the introduction of new vaccines to improve understanding of, and trust in, vaccination programmes
Macro level influences on strategic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic – an international survey and tool for national assessments
Get PDFBackground Variation in the approaches taken to contain the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic at country level has been shaped by economic and political considerations, technical capacity, and assumptions about public behaviours. To address the limited application of learning from previous pandemics, this study aimed to analyse perceived facilitators and inhibitors during the pandemic and to inform the development of an assessment tool for pandemic response planning.
Methods A cross-sectional electronic survey of health and non-health care professionals (5 May - 5 June 2020) in six languages, with respondents recruited via email, social media and website posting. Participants were asked to score inhibitors (-10 to 0) or facilitators (0 to +10) impacting country response to COVID-19 from the following domains – Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Ecological, Legislative, and wider Industry (the PESTELI framework). Participants were then asked to explain their responses using free text. Descriptive and thematic analysis was followed by triangulation with the literature and expert validation to develop the assessment tool, which was then compared with four existing pandemic planning frameworks.
Results 928 respondents from 66 countries (57% health care professionals) participated. Political and economic influences were consistently perceived as powerful negative forces and technology as a facilitator across high- and low-income countries. The 103-item tool developed for guiding rapid situational assessment for pandemic planning is comprehensive when compared to existing tools and highlights the interconnectedness of the 7 domains.
Conclusions The tool developed and proposed addresses the problems associated with decision making in disciplinary silos and offers a means to refine future use of epidemic modelling