How parents share and limit their child's access to information about COVID-19: A mixed methods online survey study.

This study aimed to understand the role that parents play in sharing or limiting their child's access to information about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). A subset of data from an international mixed methods online survey study was analysed to elucidate the findings from Brazil. An online survey, conducted between April and June 2020, gathered closed and open text views from parents of children aged 7-12 years old. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Qualitative open text data were analysed using the three stages of the Bardin content analysis framework: pre-analysis (data organisation and initial full-content reading); exploration of the material (thematic coding to identify major motifs and develop thematic categories) and interpretation (treating the data as significant and valid). The sample consisted of 112 (89%) mothers and 14 (11%) fathers. The analysis of the parents open text resulted in two categories: 'How parents share information with their children about COVID-19' and 'How parents limit information to their children about COVID-19'. Some parents reported adopting an honest and open approach on how they shared information with their children, whilst some parents chose to minimise their child's access to information about the pandemic over concerns of the mortality related to COVID-19.

How children in Sweden accessed and perceived information during the first phase of the Covid-19 pandemic.

AIM: To describe how children in Sweden accessed and perceived information about SARS-CoV2 and Covid-19 during the first phase of the outbreak. METHODS: This study is a substudy of an international cross-sectional online mixed methods survey examining elements of children's health literacy in relation to Covid-19. The survey included multiple-choice questions, open-ended questions and drawings and collected information from 50 Swedish children (7-12 years). Data were analysed concurrently on a descriptive level using statistics and content analysis. Quantitative and qualitative data, including the drawings, were considered equally important and resulted in six categories, illuminating how children accessed and perceived information about the pandemic. RESULTS: The survey showed that children accessed information mainly from school but also from TV. They preferred information from reliable sources. Children reported the information they accessed as easy to understand and it prompted them to ask new questions. They reported they knew a lot about the pandemic, for example, the potential danger to themselves and others and how to act to protect themselves and others. They perceived the pandemic as an intrusion on their lives. CONCLUSIONS: This study indicates that Swedish children between 7 and 12 years old were well informed about SARS-CoV2 and Covid-19 during the first phase of the pandemic. School was shown to be an important source of information. The children could explain how to act to protect themselves and others from becoming infected by the virus.

'I'm just ringing to get a repeat prescription for my contraceptive pill, doctor': developing authentic simulated telephone consultations for medical students.

Within normal surgery hours telephone consultations have been previously shown to make up between 10-20% of patient contacts with General Practitioners (GPs) and to comprise a large proportion of a GP's daily workload. Although obviously very useful, such doctor-patient interactions can be fraught with risk. The General Medical Council (GMC) requires that newly graduated doctors should be adaptable to the challenge of delivering treatment advice and management remotely. Yet, currently, there is limited specific training in telephone consultation skills in both undergraduate and postgraduate curricula.Authentic and properly supervised exposure of medical students to GP telephone consultations can be difficult to achieve in clinical placements. Therefore, we have developed emergency telephone consultations within our primary care Safe and Effective Clinical Outcomes (SECO) clinics which are simulated GP surgeries organised for our final year students. We have expanded the range of patients presenting in these clinics by including trained, simulated patients requesting an urgent telephone consultation with a GP. In doing so we aim to enhance our student's skills and confidence in conducting telephone consultations.This teaching exchange paper aims to describe the ideas behind the construction of simulated patient telephone scripts together with the difficulties and successes encountered in introducing telephone consultations into our GP SECO clinic. We hope these ideas and processes will stimulate and enable others to help students prepare for this challenging area of clinical medicine made increasingly significant by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Survey of young people in one region of the UK on accessing COVID-19 information (SOCIAL).

COVID-19 has significantly impacted young people's lives yet little is known about the COVID-19 related sources of information they access. We performed a cross-sectional survey of pupils (11-16 years) in North Staffordshire, UK. 408 (23%) pupils responded to an online survey emailed to them by their school. Descriptive statistics were used to summarise the data. Social media, accessed by 68%, played a significant role in the provision of information, despite it not being considered trustworthy. 89% felt that COVID-19 had negatively affected their education. Gaps in the provision of information on COVID-19 have been identified.

"People play it down and tell me it can't kill people, but I know people are dying each day". Children's health literacy relating to a global pandemic (COVID-19); an international cross sectional study.

The aim of this study was to examine aspects of children's health literacy; the information sources they were accessing, their information preferences, their perceived understanding of and their reported information needs in relation to COVID-19. An online survey for children aged 7-12 years of age and parent/caregivers from the UK, Sweden, Brazil, Spain, Canada and Australia was conducted between 6th of April and the 1st of June 2020. The surveys included demographic questions and both closed and open questions focussing on access to and understanding of COVID-19 information. Descriptive statistics and qualitative content analysis procedures were conducted. The findings show that parents are the main source of information for children during the pandemic in most countries (89%, n = 347), except in Sweden where school was the main source of information. However, in many cases parents chose to shield, filter or adapt their child's access to information about COVID-19, especially in relation to the death rates within each country. Despite this, children in this study reported knowing that COVID-19 was deadly and spreads quickly. This paper argues for a community rather than individual approach to addressing children's health literacy needs during a pandemic.