Family function and life satisfaction of postgraduate medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic: the mediating role of meaning in life and depression.

Recent studies have documented life satisfaction of people have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it is unknown about the influential factors and mechanisms of life satisfaction of postgraduate medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a strong link among life satisfaction and individual quality of life and achievement, so it is important to explore the influence mechanism of life satisfaction of postgraduate medical students and explore ways to improve life satisfaction for the development of postgraduate medical students. The current study was based on the Circumplex Model of Marital and Family System, The Theory of Family Functioning, The Meaning Maintenance Model, The Theory of Personal Meaning and Existential Theory to construct theoretical framework and examine whether meaning in life and depression would mediate the link between family function and postgraduate medical students' life satisfaction. By convenient sampling method, a total of 900 postgraduate medical students (Mage = 27.01 years, SD = 3.33) completed questionnaires including Family APGAR Scale, Chinese Version of Meaning In Life Questionnaire, Patient Health Questionnaire, and Satisfaction With Life Scale. In this study, SPSS 25.0 was used for correlation analysis, regression analysis and common method bias test, and AMOS 23.0 was used for structural equation modeling analysis. The results showed that (a) family function could predict life satisfaction of postgraduate medical students significantly; (b) both meaning in life and depression mediated the association between family function and life satisfaction in a parallel manner; (c) meaning in life and depression sequentially mediated the link between family function and life satisfaction of postgraduate medical students. The study illuminates the role of meaning in life and depression in improving life satisfaction and implies that it is necessary to focus on the changes of life satisfaction of postgraduate medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic, and medical educator can improve the sense of meaning in life of postgraduate medical students through improving their family function, further decreasing the risk of depression, finally improving their life satisfaction.

The Built Environment Assessment of Residential Areas in Wuhan during the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Outbreak.

The COVID-19 epidemic has emerged as one of the biggest challenges, and the world is focused on preventing and controlling COVID-19. Although there is still insufficient understanding of how environmental conditions may impact the COVID-19 pandemic, airborne transmission is regarded as an important environmental factor that influences the spread of COVID-19. The natural ventilation potential (NVP) is critical for airborne infection control in the micro-built environment, where infectious and susceptible people share air spaces. Taking Wuhan as the research area, we evaluated the NVP in residential areas to combat COVID-19 during the outbreak. We determined four fundamental residential area layouts (point layout, parallel layout, center-around layout, and mixed layout) based on the semantic similarity model for point of interest (POI) picking. Our analyses indicated that the center-around and point layout had a higher NVP, while the mixed and parallel layouts had a lower NVP in winter and spring. Further analysis showed that the proportion of the worst NVP has been rising, while the proportion of the poor NVP remains very high in Wuhan. This study suggested the need to efficiently improve the residential area layout in Wuhan for better urban ventilation to combat COVID-19 without losing other benefits.

Very high-resolution remote sensing-based mapping of urban residential districts to help combat COVID-19.

Urban residential districts (URDs) are a major element in the formation of cities that are essential for urban planning. Regarding the COVID-19 virus, which remains variable in aerosols for several hours, airborne transmission tends to occur in areas of poor ventilation and high occupant density. Thus, ventilation capacity is an important factor influencing airborne transmission in URDs, which should be evaluated as part of efforts to fight COVID-19 and guide healthy city planning and implementation. Here, we develop and test systematic methods to map URDs in a typical city in northern China and quantify their ventilation capacity using very high-resolution remote sensing images. Four fundamental spatial forms of URD are identified in the research area: the point-group form, parallel form, enclosed form, and hybrid form. Our analyses indicate that the integrated ventilation capacities for well-designed URDs are nearly twice those of poorly designed URDs. Large variations in ventilation capacity are also observed within URDs, with up to 13.42 times difference between the buildings. Therefore, very high-resolution remote sensing data are fundamental for extracting building height and generating precise spatial forms, which can improve the micro-scale URD ventilation planning for the prevention of COVID-19.

The structural characteristics and influential factors of psychological stress of urban residents in Jiangxi province during the COVID-19 pandemic: cross sectional study.

AIMS: To explore the structural characteristics and influential factors of psychological stress of urban residents in Jiangxi province during the COVID-19 pandemic through a survey of psychological stress, personality traits, family function and life satisfaction. METHODS: By the convenient sampling, 1422 urban residents from Jiangxi province were assessed with Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Short Scale (EPQ-RSC), Psychological Questionnaires for Emergent Events of Public Health (PQEEPH), Family APGAR Scale (APGAR) and Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). The relation among personality traits, psychological stress, family function and life satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic was analyzed by using the canonical correlation analysis and the serial mediation model. RESULTS: (1) Among the estimated correlation coefficients, the first two pairs were significant (P < 0.001 in each). (2) In the first pair of canonical variables, the loadings of neuroticism and neurasthenia were the higher (0.94, 0.70). (3) Neuroticism and life satisfaction mediated the relationship between family function and neurasthenia (ß neuroticism = -0.174; 95%CI:-0.224, -0.134; ß life satisfaction = -0.034, 95%CI:-0.012, -0.062), respectively. In addition, serial mediation analyses indicated that the association of family function and neurasthenia is mediated by neuroticism and life satisfaction in a sequential manner (ß = -0.010; 95%CI:-0.020, -0.004). CONCLUSIONS: During the COVID-19 pandemic, neuroticism was closely related to psychological stress of urban residents, especially neurasthenia. In addition, the serial mediating effect of neuroticism and life satisfaction played an important role in the process of family function influencing neurasthenia. These findings contributed to a more comprehensive understanding of the influential factors for psychological stress of urban residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alcohol Consumption in China Before and During COVID-19: Preliminary Results From an Online Retrospective Survey.

Background: Alcohol is an important aspect of Chinese culture, and alcohol use has been traditionally accepted in China. People with stress, anxiety, and depression may use more alcohol. More people reported symptoms of anxiety and depression during the outbreak of COVID-19. Thus, people may drink more alcohol during the outbreak of COVID-19 than before COVID-19. Methods: An online retrospective survey was conducted on a total sample of 2,229 participants. Drinking behaviors before and during COVID-19, current risky drinking and hazardous drinking, and the association between high-risk drinking and mental health problems (depression, anxiety, and stress) were assessed via self-reported measures on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and the 21-item Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21). Results: This study found that, compared with before COVID-19, alcohol consumption was slightly decreased during COVID-19 (from 3.5 drinks to 3.4 drinks, p = 0.035) in the overall sample. Most (78.7%) alcohol drinkers were males. Before and during COVID-19, males consumed more drinks per week (4.2 and 4.0 vs. 1.3 and 1.2 drinks), had a higher percentage of heavy drinking (8.1 and 7.7% vs. 4.4 and 2.7%), and more drinking days per week (2.1 and 2.1 vs. 1.0 and 0.9 days). Males also had more risky drinking (43.2 vs. 9.3%) and hazardous drinking (70.2 vs. 46.6%) than female counterparts. This study also found that high-risk drinking predicted anxiety in females. Conclusions: This study suggests a slight reduction in alcohol consumption during COVID-19. However, hazardous drinking is common, especially among male alcohol drinkers. Males consumed more alcohol, had more risky and hazardous drinking than female counterparts both before and during COVID-19. Public health policy makers should pay more attention to developing effective, population-based strategies to prevent harmful alcohol consumption.