Factors influencing turnover intention among healthcare employees during the COVID-19 pandemic in the private hospitals of Bahrain

PurposeThis study aims to examine the relationship between polychronicity, job autonomy, perceived workload, work-family conflict and high work demand on the health-care employee turnover intention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted quantitative research in private hospitals using a self-administered questionnaire, and 264 respondents participated. The authors also used an analysis of moment structures to determine the relationship between independent and moderating variables. FindingsThe results show a significant positive relationship between polychronicity, job autonomy, perceived workload, work-family conflict and high work demand, affecting turnover intention. This study also found the moderating effect of high work demand on work-family conflict and turnover intention. Research limitations/implicationsThis research was limited to hospitals in Bahrain during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, the findings highlight the factors associated with health-care employee turnover intention and only five factors were identified. Practical implicationsThis study enhances the theoretical and practical effects of turnover intention. The results provide a competitive benchmark for hospital managers, administrators and governing bodies of employee retention. Social implicationsIt advances economics and management theory by enhancing the understanding of health-care employees' turnover intention in Bahrain. It serves as a basis for future large-scale studies to test or refine existing theories. Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to adopt extrinsic variables in self-determination theory to measure the turnover intention of health-care employees. However, using resources in a crisis can be applied to any disaster.

Differentiating Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) and Its Mimics - A Single-Center Experience From a Tropical Setting

OBJECTIVES: Identifying clinical and laboratory indicators that differentiate multisystem inflam-matory syndrome in children (MIS-C) apart from other febrile diseases in a tropical hospital setting. METHOD(S): Review of hospital records done in a tertiary care exclusive children's hospital for children admitted from April, 2020 till June, 2021. Laboratory values, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) serological status, and clinical signs and symptoms of patients with MIS-C, and those with similar presentations were analyzed. RESULT(S): 114 children fulfilled the inclusion criteria (age group of 1 mo-18 y) for whom a diagnosis of MIS-C was considered in the emergency room based on the clinical features. Among them, 64 children had the final diagnosis of MIS-C, and the remaining 50 children had confirmatory evidence of infections mimicking MIS-C such as enteric fever, scrub typhus, dengue and appendicitis. CONCLUSION(S): Older age group, presence of muco-cutaneous symptoms, very high C-reactive protein, neutrophilic leukocytosis, abdominal pain and absence of hepatosplenomegaly favor a diagnosis of MIS-C.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of otorhinolaryngological manifestations of coronavirus disease 2019 in paediatric patients.

BACKGROUND: This meta-analysis provides a quantitative measure of the otorhinolaryngological manifestations of coronavirus disease 2019 in children. METHODS: A structured literature review was carried out using PubMed, Embase and Cochrane Central, employing pertinent search terms. The statistical analysis was performed using Stata version 14.2 software, and the analysed data were expressed as the pooled prevalence of the symptoms with 95 per cent confidence intervals. RESULTS: The commonest symptoms noted were cough (38 per cent (95 per cent confidence interval = 33-42; I2 = 97.5 per cent)), sore throat (12 per cent (95 per cent confidence interval =10-14; I2 = 93.7 per cent)), and nasal discharge (15 per cent (95 per cent confidence interval = 12-19; I2 = 96.9 per cent)). Anosmia and taste disturbances showed a pooled prevalence of 8 per cent each. Hearing loss, vertigo and hoarseness were rarely reported. CONCLUSION: Cough, sore throat and nasal discharge were the commonest otorhinolaryngological symptoms in paediatric patients with coronavirus disease 2019. Compared with adults, anosmia and taste disturbances were infrequently reported in children.

EFFECTIVE BLENDED LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION DURING COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic situation has impacted the entire education system, especially universities, and brought a new phase in education, "blended learning." The objective of the research was to study the relationship of eight independent factors: e-learning environment, elearning facilitation, e-learning materials, e-learning technical support, instructors' personal attention, interaction with instructors, interaction with peer students, and laboratory learning environment, in the provision of effective blended learning in higher education during COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, an extended relationship of gender and level of course with the effective blended learning was studied. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted with the students of higher education institutions in the Kingdom of Bahrain, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with a self-administered questionnaire aimed to learn the students' perception of blended learning. All levels of undergraduate and postgraduate students took part in the study with a sample size of 1229. Ultimately, this study used a Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach to find the positive relationship between the effective blended learning and the eight independent variables and two mediating variables in the higher education sector. The study results portrayed a positive relationship between the eight independent variables and blended learning effectiveness in higher education institutions. The findings revealed that there is a difference in the students' perception of gender, level of the course, and the effectiveness of blended learning in the HEIs. The research offers guidance to governing bodies, administrators, and teachers of HEIs in decision-making and improves their actions to provide the best teaching and learning through blended learning. HEIs need to focus on the study results to enhance blended learning effectiveness based on e-learning environment, e-learning facilitation, e-learning materials, e-learning technical support, instructors' personal attention, interaction with instructors, interaction with peer students, and laboratory learning environment. Also, since there is a significant difference between the gender, level of the course, and blended learning, providing blended learning based on gender and level of the course needs to be concentrated on by the higher education institutions.

Customer assistance using artficial intelligence based chat bots

In this technology world, a recent technology called Chat Bot which have been in demand and usage for every business purpose and have hit the market. Chat Bots is an interaction between person and bot which gives us an efficient service and it also gives the way to develop customer engagement and efficiency by reduction of cost by using these service. Chat Bots can be accessible at any time, which can handle capacity that is chat bot can chat with thousands of people at a time. It has a flexible attribute as well as customer satisfaction. A Chat Bot is constructed using natural language processing with the help of machine learning algorithm for training the bot and to make up the bot to perform in a right way and so training and testing is done using ML. This paper gives an overview of Chat Bot and challenges we faced behind the Chat Bot with extra features of images. Our proposed system is aimed at giving out the desired answers to a definite set of queries. This can be best employed in the situation of COVID-19 since every industry demands the less use of contact between each other since it works on an offline basis.