ABSTRACT
Development of the Student Wellbeing Connect (SWBC) service was a response to increased student support needs in the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Due to the government-imposed restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, students often faced complex psychosocial and wellbeing issues (Dodd et al., 2021). Two years on from its inception, the case management service has become a core component of La Trobe University's Student Health, Wellbeing and Inclusion services responding to the complex and compounding factors that can impact the wellbeing and success of university students. Varying psychosocial needs can underly a student's presentation to a counselling service;thus, the case management service complements the counsellor's role by providing practical-based interventions. The focus of the service on practical issues has provided an alternative support model for students who do not identify as primarily requiring mental health or counselling support. This has opened service provision to a broader cohort of students. Using a multi-disciplinary, strength-based, and person-centred case management approach, students work collaboratively with Wellbeing Coordinators to identify internal and external supports to address their needs through psychosocial assessments and implementation of goal-focused planning. SWBC acts as a safety net within the university setting if/when psychosocial difficulties are impacting the student's experience, academic performance, and wellbeing. This paper will outline the operational and service provision framework for providing case management to tertiary students. © 2023, Australian and New Zealand Student Services Association. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Objectives: Suicide is a global epidemic that claims up to 800,000 lives each year and is the second leading cause of death in young people aged 15-29 years. With the COVID-19 pandemic came increased rates of stress, helplessness, and suicide among adolescents. The increasing popularity of telemedicine opens new doors for identifying patients in distress, decreasing suicide rates, and increasing access to mental health services. Youth and adolescents grew up with electronics and will likely be open to the use of telemedicine in the future. However, it is unknown how prepared learners are for the unique challenges of these new modes of patient interaction. Method(s): We designed a telemedicine simulation for medical and physician assistant students to identify, assess, and appropriately escalate care for a standardized patient (SP) with suicidal ideation. We incorporated didactics on telepsychiatry, a motivational interviewing exercise, and a simulated telemedicine objective structured clinical exam (OSCE). Students completed a participant survey and were evaluated by SPs on their medical knowledge, interpersonal/communication skills, and 8 key telemedicine competencies. Result(s): Forty-four students completed the workshop, and 30 students completed the participant survey. Students were strongest in interpersonal/communication skills and weakest in telemedicine competencies. SPs evaluated telemedicine performance by deeming students "not yet entrustable," "approaching entrustment," or "entrustable" based on their ability to perform a described behavior or task unsupervised. Only 20% of students were entrustable to describe when patient safety was at risk, including when and how to escalate care. Fifty percent correctly interpreted the Patient Health Questionnaire, 59% completed the Columbia Suicide Risk Assessment, and 41% completed a suicide safety plan. Ninety-seven percent of students said that they expect to use telemedicine in their future practice. Conclusion(s): The telepsychiatry OSCE revealed gaps in students' telepsychiatry knowledge, particularly in telemedicine-specific competencies. Future studies are needed to assess the generalizability of our findings, including incorporating adolescent SPs to prepare students for the mental health needs of all ages given increasing rates of suicide in adolescent populations. TVM, S, AC Copyright © 2022
ABSTRACT
In the era of Covid 19 and mass vaccination programs, the anti-vaccination movement across the world is currently at an all-time high. Much of this anti-vaccination sentiment could be attributed to the alleged side effects that are perpetuated across social media from anti-vaccination groups. Fear mongering and misinformation being peddled by people with no scientific training to terrorise people into staying unvaccinated is not just causing people to remain susceptible to viral outbreaks, but could also be causing more side effects seen in the vaccination process. This brief review will offer data that may demonstrate that misinformation perpetuated by the anti-vaccination movement may be causing more deaths and side effects from any vaccine. A mini review of published literature has been conducted and found that mental stress clearly causes vasoconstriction and arterial constriction of the blood vessels. Therefore, if subjects are panicked, concerned, stressed or scared of the vaccination, their arteries will constrict and become smaller in and around the time of receiving the vaccine. This biological mechanism (the constriction of veins, arteries and vessels under mental stress) is the most likely cause for where there has been blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, dizziness, fainting, blurred vision, loss of smell and taste that may have been experienced shortly after vaccine administration. The extreme mental stress of the patient could most likely be attributed to the fear mongering and scare tactics used by various anti-vaccination groups. This paper does not aim to rule in or out every side effect seen, but it is highly likely that many apparent side effects seen shortly after a subject has received a vaccine could be the result of restricted or congested blood flow from blood vessel or arterial constriction caused by emotional distress or placebo based on fear around vaccines.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused colleges of pharmacy to abruptly change teaching strategies mid-semester in Spring 2020 due to campus closure and transition to remote learning. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of pandemic-induced remote learning on student skill acquisition in a third year pharmacy student (P3) Pharmacists' Patient Care Process (PPCP) capstone course. Methods: Student performance on weekly quizzes and mid-term and final practical examinations were evaluated before and after implementation of remote learning in 2020 and were compared with a previous class in 2019. Paired and anonymous student perceptions of their skill development were also compared within the same semester and between years. Independent sample and paired Student's t tests were used to compare means, the Pearson correlation was used to identify associations between continuous variables, and nonparametric tests were used to compare ordinal data. Results: In 2020, student performance was significantly higher on quizzes at the end of the semester after implementation of remote learning compared with pre-remote learning (8.2 ± 1.6 vs 7.7 ± 1.8 points, P <.05). Students performed significantly worse on the final examination compared with the mid-term examination (21.2 ± 5.4 vs 23.4 ± 5.3 points, P <.05) in 2020. Students also performed significantly worse on the final examination in 2020 compared with 2019 (21.3 ± 5.4 vs 23.1 ± 5.4, P <.01). In both 2019 and 2020, students rated their ability to meet course objectives higher at the end of the semester compared with the beginning of the semester (P <.05). Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic-related changes in course delivery, participation, and assessment had a mixed effect on development of a systematic process for patient work-up skills using the PPCP. Students progressed throughout the semester on early PPCP patient work-up skills, but performance decreased when higher level skills or later PPCP steps were assessed and was lower compared with a previous offering of the course.