Navigating stroke care during the COVID-19 pandemic: A scoping review (preprint)

Background: Previous viral outbreaks have highlighted implications for the management of complex health conditions. This study delves into the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on stroke care, by examining evidence of shifts in healthcare utilization, the enduring effects on post-stroke recovery, and the overall quality of life experienced by stroke survivors. Methods: A scoping review was conducted following the Joanna Briggs Institute Methodology for Scoping Reviews. The search strategy encompassed electronic databases (APA PsycInfo, Embase, Medline, and CINAHL). English language articles published between December 2019 and January 2022 were included, focusing on individuals who experienced a stroke during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data extraction involved identifying study characteristics and significant findings, facilitating a qualitative and narrative synthesis of the gathered evidence. Results: Seven domain summaries were identified. They all described the aspects of systemic transformations in stroke care during the COVID-19 pandemic: (1) patient behavior and awareness; (2) telemedicine and remote care; (3) delays in treatment; (4) impact on healthcare resources; (5) quality of care; (6) changes in stroke severity; and (7) reduction in stroke admissions. Conclusions: This study underscored the critical need to encourage swift patient response to acute stroke symptoms, by finding new avenues for treatment, mitigating hospital-related infection fears, and advocating for the establishment of centralized stroke centers. These measures are integral to optimizing stroke care delivery and ensuring timely interventions, particularly in the challenging context of a pandemic.

Do you know your Partner's personality through virtual collaboration or negotiation? Investigating perceptions of personality and their impacts on performance

Interpersonal skills, including collaborative problem solving (CPS) and negotiation skills, are essential in many aspects of the 21st century. With the rapid development of technologies in the past decades, it has become increasingly prevalent for collaborations, negotiations, and communications to occur virtually. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift from in-person interactions to virtual interactions. On the other hand, personality traits, enduring characteristics of individuals that are largely stable over time, affect a wide variety of human behaviors, including how people interact with each other. In this study, we investigated the extent to which team members' personalities, the heterogeneity in personalities among team members, and the interaction processes in virtual tasks impacted performance on these tasks with limited exposure to personal information such as appearance and voice. In addition, we examined how one perceived the team partner's personality and how people tended to project their own personality onto partners during the short-term virtual interactions. Findings suggested that higher heterogeneity in personality between partners was associated with better team negotiation performance, while it was not associated with collaboration outcomes in the CPS task. Implications of the findings and limitations of this research were also discussed.