ABSTRACT
To reduce the spread of COVID-19, adherence to protective measures was crucial around the world. While most complied with these measures, a vocal minority protested against them. Early reports emphasized the unusual heterogeneity of these protests: Hippies and esoterics marched alongside conspiracy theorists and neo-Nazis. We examined what these protestors might (and might not) have in common. A large study with antilockdown protestors in Germany (N = 1,700) revealed four subgroups: centrists, politically undifferentiated, left-wingers, and right-wingers. Beyond that, these subgroups demonstrated striking similarities: All endorsed conspiracy beliefs, misinformation, esotericism, and vaccine hesitancy to a similar extent. These beliefs share that they are scientifically unfounded and epistemically unwarranted. They may unite individuals from diverse political backgrounds in the antilockdown protests. © 2023 The Author(s).
ABSTRACT
Background: The COVID-pandemic has challenged medical education on multiple levels. Radiation Oncology (RO) is a pivotal clinical discipline for the understanding of modern oncology concepts [1]. The following analysis aims at providing an overview of students' evaluation of RO teaching in the pre- and pandemic situation. Method(s): RO curriculum at our faculty is organized longitudinally spanning all clinical semesters which are analyzed here. Students' evaluation is mandatory and done on a 101-item Likert scale (0-100;with 0 being the best grade). Starting from summer semester 2020 onward, lectures were digitalized and digital implementation was rated on a 11-item Likert scale (-5-+5;with -5 being the best grade). Evaluation results and participant numbers between winter semester 2018/2019 and summer semester 2021 were assessed, the first three semesters being classified as "pre-pandemic" and the later three as "pandemic". Result(s): Lectures were rated with a median 18.5-21.5 for the 2nd-6th clinical semester. Comparison between pre-pandemic and pandemic semesters revealed a deterioration of 1-3 points. Median participants numbers were 63.5-89 with an increase of 12-20 in the pandemic semesters except for the 6th clinical semester. The percentage of students attending 75 % of RO lectures in one semester increased considerably (median: 41.4 % vs. 75.3 %). Digital implementation was rated with a median score of -2 to 0. Discussion(s): Differences between pre-pandemic and pandemic evaluations are consistent but small and are unlikely a sign of students' discontent. Digital formats could augment the numbers of participants as well as the percentage of presence. Digital implementation was evaluated to be average to good. Conclusion(s): Digital transfer of RO is feasible and good evaluation results are maintained. Additional concepts with a web-based learning platform and videocasts are currently being developed.
ABSTRACT
The coronavirus pandemic upended in-person programming for older adults with cognitive decline, presenting an urgent need to explore options to offer virtual programming. This program development report describes the adaptation of a music program for older adults with memory loss from in-person to a digital format. The objective was to develop a music program that was both engaging for the older adults, acceptable for the music instructor, and clearly defined for future research and implementation. This report describes the content of the music program and the systematic process of its development, including stakeholder interviews, acceptability surveys, fidelity reviews, and the developed instructor manual. With these structures in place, future research could begin to discern if digital music programming can support older adults in the same way that has been demonstrated in-person, potentially offering a new way to support the cognitive and social needs of a vulnerable population.
ABSTRACT
The spread of online hate has become a significant problem for newspapers that host comment sections. As a result, there is growing interest in using machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) for (semi-) automated abusive language detection to avoid manual comment moderation costs or having to shut down comment sections altogether. However, much of the past work on abusive language detection assumes that classifiers operate in a static language environment, despite language and news being in a state of constant flux. In this paper, we show using a new German newspaper comments dataset that the classifiers trained with naive ML techniques like a random test-train split will underperform on future data, and that a time-stratified evaluation split is more appropriate. We also show that a classifier's performance rapidly degrades when evaluated on data from a different period than the training data. Our findings suggest that it is necessary to consider the temporal dynamics of language when developing an abusive language detection system or risk deploying a model that will quickly become defunct. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The health and financial burdens faced by cancer survivors, compounded by the significant disruption in care and their increased risk for morbidity and mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasize the need to assess the mental health impact of the pandemic in this population. We examined the association between beliefs about COVID and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms among breast and prostate cancer survivors. METHODS: Participants from two longitudinal cohort studies completed surveys assessing their beliefs about COVID- 19, as well as stress and PTSD symptoms. COVID beliefs were assessed using questions adapted from a previous coronavirus survey developed through an iterative process. PTSD symptoms were assessed using the PTSD Checklist (PCL-5). Participants with PCL-5 scores ≥ 33 were classified as having COVID-related PTSD symptoms. Surveys were completed between May 2020 and June 2021 and were categorized into four time points: season 1 from May 2020 to August 2020, season 2 from September 2020 to November 2020, season 3 from December 2020 to February 2021 and season 4 from March 2021 to June 2021. Chi-square, Fisher, Signed Rank Wilcoxon tests and general linear models were performed to assess the relationships between COVID beliefs and PTSD symptoms. RESULTS: Participants were 276 older cancer survivors (mean age 67 years), of whom 157 (57%) were female and had breast cancer and 118 (43%) were male with prostate cancer. Seventy (25%) self-identified as Black, 147 (53%) as White, and 36 (13%) identified as Latinx. Twenty-four participants (7%) had COVID-related PTSD symptoms. Participants with PTSD symptoms were more likely to be very worried about getting COVID (65% vs. 33%, p=0.007), more likely to think that ≥10% of people with COVID would die (75% vs. 40%, p=0.006), and that it was very likely that they or someone they know will get sick from COVID (64% vs. 23%, p=0.006). As the pandemic drew on, cancer survivors' beliefs about COVID changed such that fewer respondents reported that COVID changed their daily routine a lot in season 4 compared to season 1 (88% vs 65%, p <0.001), and fewer were very worried about getting COVID (38% vs. 19%, p=0.056). Temporality was also significantly associated with a decrease in PTSD symptoms with average PCL-5 scores decreasing from 14.2 to 8.9 in season 1 compared to season 4 (p <0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: As the pandemic progressed, cancer survivors tended to have decreased levels of PTSD symptoms, were less likely to have their routines disrupted and were less worried about getting COVID. However, among participants who had PTSD symptoms, concerns about COVID were significantly higher than among those without PTSD symptoms, emphasizing the need for mental health screening and counseling to better support survivors' coping with the impacts of the pandemic.
ABSTRACT
Since the beginning of 2020 an increase in a Kawasaki-like disease has been noted. The WHO assumes a connection to the COVID-19 pandemic and it is defined as the multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) associated with coronavirus disease 2019.A 9-year-old boy attended the pediatric emergency department with persistent fever and then developed a classical Kawasaki syndrome with affection of the left coronary artery. A specific origin of an infection could not be detected. The SARS-CoV-2 PCR was negative. In due course positive SARS-CoV2 antibodies were detected. The patient was treated with intravenous immunoglobulins, ASS and a glucocorticoid, which led to an improvement in the clinical and echocardiographic state of the patient.
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Intensive care units have staff burnout levels reported to be as high as 47%. A recent study demonstrated high levels of burnout in pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) trainees. The practice of narrative medicine is one potential intervention to mitigate burnout. Narrative medicine could help medical trainees foster empathy and resilience, and renew compassion. While many narrative programs exist in medical training, there are no studies describing a narrative curriculum for PICU fellows. There are also few studies evaluating the effect of such programs on burnout. We hypothesized that a narrative medicine program is feasible to incorporate into the curriculum of a PICU fellowship, and that it will improve validated burnout metrics in ICU trainees. METHODS: The primary fellow investigator developed a literary curriculum for all of our PICU fellows (total of eight fellows). Each fellow completed baseline burnout evaluations, the abbreviated Maslach Burnout Inventory (aMBI) and the Professional Quality of Life Scale version 5 (ProQOL5). Each month, participants read a short narrative with group discussion facilitated by the primary fellow investigator. Fellows provided qualitative evaluation at the end of each session. Validated burnout scores and curriculum feedback were collected at the end of the study. RESULTS: Narrative medicine was a feasible addition to the fellowship curriculum, with 87.5% reporting they enjoyed the sessions. When asked if these sessions influenced their capacity to respond to peers, 62.5% responded favorably. Only 37.5% perceived that these sessions helped them respond to patients. Interestingly, qualitative feedback suggested sessions were more enjoyable and more appreciated after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. aMBI average Emotional Exhaustion scores decreased, from 8 to 5.75 (p=0.003) and Depersonalization scores also decreased. Personal Accomplishment and Satisfaction scores increased. In addition, ProQOL Burnout and Secondary Trauma scores decreased. Compassion scores were unchanged. CONCLUSIONS: A narrative medicine curriculum is feasible and accepted within the educational structure of a PICU fellowship program. Burnout metrics improved after participation in the narrative medicine sessions. Further evaluation with a larger sample size is warranted.