ABSTRACT
Students' lives can be impacted by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This study investigates the relationship between COVID-19 pandemic anxiety and the quality of life of Filipino college students and examines the mediating role of academic stress in this relationship. A total of 1,024 students enrolled in Philippine universities and colleges participated in this cross-sectional analytical study. Findings suggest that pandemic anxiety positively correlates with the quality of life (c=.399, p=0.002). When academic stress is added as a mediator, pandemic anxiety has a negative indirect effect on the quality of life (ab=-.410, p<.001), and maintains a positive direct effect on the quality of life (c'=.809, p<.001), yielding an inconsistent mediation model among the three variables. In short, the COVID-19 pandemic anxiety has a double-edged effect on the quality of life, with its negative effect explained through academic stress. Stakeholders in college education are suggested to employ interventions to address academic stress among students. © 2023, author.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: The ubiquity of online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic induced the widespread use of videoconferencing applications. However, the prolonged use of these applications can lead to videoconferencing fatigue. Drawing from an online survey sample of 215 senior high school students from a selected private university in Manila, Philippines, this mixed methods study examines videoconferencing fatigue and its relationship with online student engagement (OSE) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and methods: This study utilized a convergent triangulation research design. The quantitative strand was cross-sectional in nature. The constructs were measured using the Zoom Exhaustion and Fatigue Scale and Online Student Engagement Scale. Bivariate and multivariate statistical tests were used to determine the significance of the relationships between variables. The qualitative strand utilized a descriptive design. Narrative data were collected through an open-ended survey question and analyzed using content analysis. Results: Quantitative results indicate moderate to high levels of videoconferencing fatigue among student respondents. Moreover, higher levels of OSE were observed among those who endured higher visual fatigue and attended videoconferences more days a week. Qualitative findings demonstrate various manifestations of videoconferencing fatigue among students and relate it with decreased energy to perform academic tasks and learning absorption. However, the qualitative analysis also reveals students' perceived need for videoconferencing to learn online. Discussion: The nuanced insights from both strands highlight that despite their perceived negative impacts of videoconferencing, students had to tolerate visual videoconferencing fatigue in order to engage meaningfully in online classes. Copyright © 2022 Dacillo, Dizon, Ong, Pingol and Cleofas.
ABSTRACT
Cognizant of the role of the family in influencing health behaviors among its young members, especially during the time of COVID-19 in the Philippines where stay-at-home measures were in place from March 2020 until March 2022, this study sought to determine the predictive relationship of family relationship to COVID-19 preventive behavioral intention and pandemic fatigue among young Filipino undergraduates. A total of 1,665 undergraduate students participated in this cross-sectional online survey. Findings reveal that family cohesion significantly increases COVID-19 prevention behavioral intention among undergraduates. Moreover, students who report high levels of conflict in the family are less likely to comply with preventive behaviors and exhibit higher levels of pandemic fatigue. © 2022, Center for Asian Public Opinion Research and Collaboration Initiative. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Background: The COVID-19 public health crisis has caused disruptions in the continuum of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) services. Hence, HIV advocates and care providers must innovate to ensure the health and welfare of people living with HIV (PLHIVs) and other at-risk populations. There is a lack of empirical research that explores the experiences and perspectives of HIV volunteers in adapting to pandemic-related challenges. Purpose: This qualitative study aimed to describe the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in the provision of HIV services of Filipino volunteers during the pandemic. Methods: Qualitative descriptive study design was used, focusing on ICT use for HIV care. Sixteen (16) purposively selected volunteers from three community-based organizations (CBO) were interviewed using a semi-structured guide via videoconference. Inductive qualitative content analysis was used to draw insights from the data. Results: Findings revealed that volunteers used various ICTs such as social media, videoconferencing, dating sites, and online-based courier services to ensure continuity of HIV services. However, volunteers noted challenges in using ICT for HIV services, such as limited access to digital resources, increased work demands, and lack of human connection. Conclusion: Various tools and implementations of ICTs have been used by volunteers to ensure the continuity of services of PLHIVs. This study provides insights to nurses and informaticists in implementing digital technologies in caring for vulnerable clients during outbreaks like COVID-19. Copyright © 2022 NMJN.
ABSTRACT
The 2019 novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has increased the mental health challenges and decreased the quality of life among students and the general adult population. However, adult learners and non-traditional students who are currently at their quarter and midlife during the pandemic, remain underrepresented in well-being research. Moreover, the unique sociocultural and historical contexts specific to generational cohorts may have an impact on the way they experience and cope with the challenges brought about by the pandemic. This study sought to determine the relationships among generational identity, mental well-being and life satisfaction among Millennial and Generation X Filipino adult learners. A total of 543 adult learners participated in this online cross-sectional study. Findings suggest that young millennials reported lower levels of mental well-being and life satisfaction compared to old millennials and Gen Xers. Moreover, mental well-being was found to be a predictor of life satisfaction among Filipino adult learners, regardless of their generational identity. Schools must implement initiatives to monitor and address mental health issues among adult learners, contextualized to quarter and midlife contexts. © 2022 The Author(s).
ABSTRACT
Vaccine hesitancy and other COVID-19-related concerns and complaints in the Philippines are evident on social media. It is important to identify these different topics and sentiments in order to gauge public opinion, use the insights to develop policies, and make necessary adjustments or actions to improve public image and reputation of the administering agency and the COVID-19 vaccines themselves. This paper proposes a semi-supervised machine learning pipeline to perform topic modeling, sentiment analysis, and an analysis of vaccine brand reputation to obtain an in-depth understanding of national public opinion of Filipinos on Facebook. The methodology makes use of a multilingual version of Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers or BERT for topic modeling, hierarchical clustering, five different classifiers for sentiment analysis, and cosine similarity of BERT topic embeddings for vaccine brand reputation analysis. Results suggest that any type of COVID-19 misinformation is an emergent property of COVID-19 public opinion, and that the detection of COVID-19 misinformation can be an unsupervised task. Sentiment analysis aided by hierarchical clustering reveal that 21 of the 25 topics extrapolated by topic modeling are negative topics. Such negative comments spike in count whenever the Department of Health in the Philippines posts about the COVID-19 situation in other countries. Additionally, the high numbers of laugh reactions on the Facebook posts by the same agency-without any humorous content-suggest that the reactors of these posts tend to react the way they do, not because of what the posts are about but because of who posted them. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has been there for over a year and may substantially negatively impact student's mental well-being. This study aimed to assess the subjective mental wellbeing and satisfaction with life of Filipino college students. This cross-sectional study involved the analysis of 1,141 college students in the Philippines. The data were collected using the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale and the Satisfaction with Life Scale. Results indicated that while 52.8% reported high satisfaction with life, 40.2% had poor mental well-being. Self-reported health status (beta=1.899, p=.000), age (beta=0.179, p=.000), and year level (beta=0.306, p=.000) predicted mental well-being. On the other hand, subjective mental well-being (beta=0.736, p=.000), self-reported health status (beta=0.967, p=.000), and age (beta=0.691, p=.025) predicted life satisfaction. The COVID-19 pandemic has likely affected students' mental health and well-being. Interventions should be initiated to address the mental health needs of the students during this pandemic and even beyond the health crisis.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic calls for educators to deliver learning experiences that are relevant in order to empower students to adapt to these unprecedented times. Science, Technology and Society (STS) is an interdisciplinary social science course included in the undergraduate general education curriculum in the Philippines that can potentially be designed to help students make sense of the coronavirus crisis. This study aims to describe the insights on the COVID-19 pandemic among undergraduate students enrolled in STS classes through the textual analysis of their reflection papers. A total of 74 reflection papers were qualitatively textually analysed using thematic analysis. Four themes emerged from the data: (1) appreciation of the science and medical community;(2) sensitivity to the barriers of scientific progress during the COVID-19 pandemic;(3) gaining social consciousness about the impacts of the pandemic, and;(4) enrichment of critical thinking and social engagement. Educators are encouraged to incorporate STS approaches in their lessons to foster students' critical understanding of current socio-scientific issues.