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BACKGROUND: COVID-19 infection continues all over the world, causing serious physical and psychological impacts to patients. Patients with COVID-19 infection suffer from various negative emotional experiences such as anxiety, depression, mania, and alienation, which seriously affect their normal life and is detrimental to the prognosis. Our study is aimed to investigate the effect of psychological capital on alienation among patients with COVID-19 and the mediating role of social support in this relationship. METHODS: The data were collected in China by the convenient sampling. A sample of 259 COVID-19 patients completed the psychological capital, social support and social alienation scale and the structural equation model was adopted to verify the research hypotheses. RESULTS: Psychological capital was significantly and negatively related to the COVID-19 patients' social alienation (p < .01). And social support partially mediated the correlation between psychological capital and patients' social alienation (p < .01). CONCLUSION: Psychological capital is critical to predicting COVID-19 patients' social alienation. Social support plays an intermediary role and explains how psychological capital alleviates the sense of social alienation among patients with COVID-19 infection.
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COVID-19 , Social Capital , Humans , Social Support , Anxiety , ChinaABSTRACT
In this paper, we outline the contours of the history of oppression toward Palestinians to discern how the settler colonial racial capitalist state of Israel generates alienation in Palestinians. To accomplish this, we explore how the Global North disregards and/or participates in propping up Israel's oppressive structural processes for stripping Palestinians of their land, resources, and identity. This includes the Palestinian healthcare system that has suffered decades of deliberate neglect, under-development, and strategic fragmentation, which hindered its coronavirus disease response. We conclude with implications and suggestions for rethinking not only how Palestinians are racialized and alienated as ‘others' in a settler colonial racial capitalist system of oppression, but how the slow process of identity erosion (and perversion) works to dehumanize and justify the dispossession of Palestinians. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Critical Sociology (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
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Amidst the Covid-19 lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 in the United States and United Kingdom, a fantasy took hold that life under lockdown was like living in a time loop. The time loop quickly became the genre of the moment. And yet, however "timely" they appeared, most of the time-loop films and series du jour had been conceived and produced before the pandemic. Why and how did they become retrofitted to the temporality of the pandemic? To answer this question, we delve into the split time of the time-loop film. We argue that, in its deferred arrival, the time loop became a fantastical solution to the problems of loneliness, stuckness, and the future that the pandemic stoked but did not originate. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)
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By unleashing capitalist social relations on a planet-wide scale, the "neoliberal model of development” is destroying the possibility of what the young Marx (Economic and philosophical manuscripts. In K. Marx. Early writings. Penguin in association with New Left Review, 1975) called humanity's "species [well]being” defined as material security, inclusive solidarity and creative autonomy. The first part of the chapter, in opposition to Althusser's anti-humanist dismissal of the early work, builds on young Marx's alienation-based account of how capitalist production relations undermine humanity's wellbeing. The second part demonstrates how capitalism's contemporary neoliberal form further undermines the foundations of human wellbeing. Building critically beyond Marx's nineteenth-century critique, this chapter argues that the competitive, exclusive, precarious, individualistic, ecologically unsustainable, and Sociology, COVID-19 -ridden contemporary neoliberal-led capitalist world is undermining the social and material foundations of humanity's wellbeing considered as "planetary wellbeing” (Antó et al., Sustainability 13:3372, 2021). The concluding discussion sketches elements of a democratic socialist alternative to both the neoliberal model of development and to authoritarian socialism that can deliver planetary wellbeing. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022, corrected publication 2022
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Approximately one out of ten COVID-19 cases in Ecuador was a physician. It has been reported that this situation has led to a serious detriment of physicians' health and well-being. This study aimed to (i) identify predictors of emotional exhaustion, somatization, and work alienation in Ecuadorian physicians working with COVID-19 patients and (ii) explore the pandemic impact on doctor-patient relationships and on empathy. In 79 Ecuadorian physicians (45 women) who worked with COVID-19 patients, two separate multiple regression models explained the following: 73% of the variability of emotional exhaustion was based on somatization, work alienation, working sector, and passing through a symptomatic infection (p < 0.001), and 56% of the variability of somatization was based on gender and emotional exhaustion (p < 0.001), respectively. Furthermore, intention to leave the profession was more frequent among physicians with greater work alienation (p = 0.003). On the contrary, more empathic physicians never considered leaving their profession during the COVID-19 pandemic (p = 0.03). In physicians' verbatim, cognitive empathy appeared associated to a positive change in doctor-patient relationships. On the contrary, having an overwhelming emotional empathy appeared associated to a negative change in doctor-patient relationships. These findings characterize differences in how physicians cope while working in the frontline of the pandemic.
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Background Purpose Design/Method Results Conclusions The COVID‐19 pandemic has highlighted, exacerbated, and caused many challenges within engineering education. At the same time, the pandemic provided opportunities for engineering educators to learn from forced change to promote strategic efforts to improve classroom engagement and connection to better support engineering students.We leveraged students' stories to discuss ways university administrators, faculty, and instructors can better support their students during times of global crisis and beyond the current pandemic.We conducted longitudinal narrative interviews with four White women engineering students from different universities in their third and fourth years. The students were selected from a larger research project because their rich and reflective stories resonated with other participant narratives, the research team, and ongoing conversations about educating during and after the COVID‐19 pandemic. Through narrative inquiry, we constructed "restoryed” vignettes and identified patterns within the four students' distinctive stories by drawing on a theoretical framework designed to examine connection and alienation.The findings provided insights into how students were stressed and disconnected from their education in undesirable ways. The findings also provide insight into how those same students received support and maintained a connection to their institution, advisors, and instructors that educators could emulate.Our theoretical framework of connection and alienation proved helpful for understanding the experiences of four engineering students. Additionally, these stories provide practical examples of how faculty and staff can support student connections beyond the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Engineering Education is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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COVID-19 taught us the importance of personalized ICT use in the higher Educational context. In this scenario, the importance of researching student ICT behaviour is becoming more crucial. This study investigates the influence of student alienation (SAL), socio-economic status, residential background, type of course, and gender on students ICT use behaviour. Seven hundred and four Kashmiri university students responded to an offline survey comprising two scales: student ICT use scale and student alienation scale. The results showed that SAL has a negative relationship with student ICT use for education and capital enhancement. Students differed in their ICT behaviour based on gender, type of course, and residential background. Socio-economic status was positively correlated with ICT use for education and entertainment. These findings highlight the nuances of ICT use behaviour among young university students. The implications and future research directions have been discussed. © 2022 IGI Global. All rights reserved.
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Purpose: This study motivated by humanistic care aims to identify hospitality frontline employees' alienation in Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic, and based on the job demands-resources (JD-R) model, the mediating role of alienation between job characteristics and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is discussed. Design/methodology/approach: The authors drew on the JD-R model to delineate the mechanisms by which job demands (including emotional dissonance and work–home conflict) and job resources (including job support, training and possibility for career development) affect OCB through employees' alienation. This study adopted snowball sampling and purposive sampling to conduct a questionnaire survey aimed at Taiwanese hospitality frontline employees. A total of 373 valid questionnaires were retained, and structural equation model was used to test the research hypotheses. Findings: The results revealed that job demands of emotional dissonance and work–family conflict positively affect alienation;job resources of job support, training and possibility for career development negatively affect alienation;alienation negatively affects OCB;and alienation mediates the relationship between job characteristics and OCB fully. Research limitations/implications: Considering that alienation plays a full mediating role between job characteristics and organizational outcomes, this study put forward specific suggestions on how to increase job resources and reduce job demands to weaken alienation and further improve organizational performance in management practices. And practical implications were provided to help hospitality human resource management deal with the issue of talents retention. In addition, "work authenticity” should be introduced as a mediator in the future research. "Work authenticity” reflects employees' positive working life state and is the opposite of "alienation.” The effectiveness of employees' positive and negative working life state in communicating job characteristics and organizational outcomes can be compared. Originality/value: The specific alienation experience of hospitality frontline employees is defined. Moreover, by introducing the alienation theory, this study demonstrates the health impairment path of JD-R model and suggests that job characteristics affect OCB through the full mediation of alienation. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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This study aimed to examine physical education teachers' perceptions of work alienation in Turkey according to different variables (including gender, marital status, school level, availability of a gym in the school, age, and years of service) during the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected sustainability in education on a global scale. The study employed the survey method and research data were collected from 442 volunteer physical education teachers working in different provinces of Turkey through the "Physical Education Teachers' Alienation to Work Scale”. The results showed that physical education teachers had low levels of alienation in their work. The scale's subdimensions ‘occupational isolation' and ‘powerlessness' indicated higher levels of work alienation compared to other subdimensions. Among teachers who had completed their graduate education, the level of work alienation was higher in the subdimensions ‘powerlessness' and ‘occupational alienation'. Based on a comparison with prior research on sustainability in education, the COVID-19 pandemic could be said to have no significant impact on physical education teachers' levels of work alienation. The cause of work alienation among physical education teachers was structural issues rather than specific time-bound events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2023 by the authors.
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The present study examines the role of personality traits, interpersonal relationships, and sociodemographic factors on perceived stress, related to COVID-19, and compliance with measures to mitigate its spread. Data were collected in the midst of the 'first wave' lockdown, with the survey completed in full by 963 participants. We measured stress, directly related to the pandemic, rather than general stress, and were able to distinguish between symptoms of emotional, behavioural, cognitive, physical stress, and alienation with high concordance. We included personality scoring with standardized T-scores, allowing for cross-study comparison, and a broader questionnaire on the participants' support for COVID-19 mitigation measures. Results of the multiple regression models indicated that low emotional stability and introversion, and high conscientiousness, common conflicts with loved ones, and some demographics (female gender, middle age, chronic health problems) correspond to elevated stress. Conscientiousness was positively associated with total stress and some of its components, whereas opposite results were found for emotional stability. Extraversion was negatively correlated to total stress, its emotional and physical components, and alienation. Surprisingly, increased stress was not related to greater measure adherence. The present results shed light on how personality, interpersonal relationships, and sociodemographic factors influence people's stress response during a pandemic.
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OBJECTIVE: The present research examines how different forms of subjective isolation predict COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and resistance with two online studies conducted in the U.S. METHODS: Study 1 (n = 695), conducted before COVID-19 vaccines were available, tested if different forms of subjective isolation predicted lower trust in potential COVID-19 vaccines. Study 2 (n = 674), conducted almost a year after COVID-19 vaccines were available, tested if different forms of subjective isolation predicted not being vaccinated. RESULTS: In Study 1, existential isolation and alienation predicted lower trust in potential COVID-19 vaccines, while loneliness did not. In Study 2, existential isolation and alienation, but not loneliness, predicted not getting vaccinated. CONCLUSION: Existential isolation and alienation are associated with negative attitudes and behavior towards vaccines and may contribute to decreased participation in public health-related behaviors.
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COVID-19 , Vaccines , Humans , COVID-19 Vaccines/therapeutic use , COVID-19/prevention & control , Emotions , Loneliness , Health Behavior , VaccinationABSTRACT
Background: Nurses' work alienation has become increasingly serious due to the increase in workload and risk during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, no studies have investigated the link between empathy, ego depletion, and work alienation among Chinese nurses. The present study aimed to evaluate Chinese nurses' empathy, ego depletion, and work alienation and to examine whether nurses' ego depletion mediates the relationship between empathy and work alienation. Methods: This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study involving 353 nurses from Shaanxi. The Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Professionals, Self-Regulating Fatigue Scale and Work Alienation Questionnaire were used to collect data through an online survey. Structural equation modeling was conducted to analyze the mediating model. Results: Work alienation was negatively correlated with empathy (r = -0.305, p < 0.01) and positively correlated with ego depletion (r = 0.652, p < 0.01). Empathy was negatively correlated with ego depletion (r = -0.325, p < 0.01). Empathy can directly predict work alienation (ß = -0.263, p < 0.01), while ego depletion has a mediating effect between empathy and work alienation (ß = -0.309, p < 0.01), and the mediating effect accounts for 54.02% of the total effect. Conclusion: Nurses' work alienation was at a moderate-to-high level. Improving empathy can reduce work alienation through less ego depletion. Nursing managers should discover nurses' work alienation as soon as possible. Interventions to improve empathy can help replenish nurses' psychological resources, thereby reducing ego depletion and work alienation.
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This article describes the social mechanisms that condition the negative policy feedback effects among powerless social groups. It uses the policy feedback theory to explain the role of the administrative burden as the intermediate negative policy feedback that can lead to end negative policy feedback effects. The article elaborates upon the unequal treatment of low-income migrants in cities during pre-pandemic times and how that has led to alienation and civil disobedience during the COVID-19 pandemic in India. It highlights the essential role of democratic mechanisms like media and the judiciary in mitigating the inequality exacerbating effects of public service encounters. The article makes a case for promoting an understanding of the concept of the administrative burden that converges its experience-distant and experience-near meanings.
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Background. Singing in choirs, which previous research has identified as supporting wellbeing, has been restricted and altered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Purpose. The purpose of this study is to investigate and describe the experience of music-making for musicians in professional and semi-professional choirs in Canada 18-22 months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Method. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 participants and analyzed using interpretive description. Findings. Four themes: (1) increased negative feelings associated with the music-making experience due to COVID-19 restrictions, (2) isolation and disconnection, (3) recognizing how music-making aids in their own mental health, the participants used music-making to help their communities cope with the pandemic, and (4) adapting in response to COVID-19 reinforced music-making's importance. Implications. Understanding how the COVID-19 pandemic has altered Canadian choral musicians' experience of music-making can help occupational therapists in supporting choral musicians return to this meaningful occupation.
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COVID-19 , Music , Occupational Therapy , Humans , Music/psychology , Pandemics , COVID-19/epidemiology , Canada/epidemiologyABSTRACT
The implementation of emergency remote teaching (ERT) in many institutions has led to radical changes in both teaching and studying approaches in Higher Education institutions worldwide. This pilot study examines the changes in study strategies from the first to the second term in the 2019-2020 academic year in the Foreign Languages and Literatures Department at the University of Verona. A survey was conducted with a group of 19 language students, all of whom studied English as a foreign language. They completed a questionnaire, which consisted of both closed and open-ended questions, as part of a mixed methods study of their perceptions of ways in which their learning strategies had changed from the first to the second term. They were also asked to identify which elements of the ERT experience they considered effective. The aim of the study was primarily to examine the changing strategies with an eye to determining elements to be integrated into our pedagogical approach in the future: to establish which factors had been positive and where the problems lay. This paper focuses mainly on the findings from the qualitative analysis of the open-ended questions section of the questionnaire, which underline the changes that came about as a consequence of the emergency. Whilst many strategies remained the same, a positive evaluation of the blending of asynchronous online resources with synchronous online lessons held in video-conferencing contexts also emerged. A partially mixed message, however, was noted. This was because, despite their endorsement of social interaction when studying in groups during streamed lessons, a preference for "studying alone " to prepare for their exams was also highlighted by participants.
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Background: When working with colleagues of predominantly biological perspectives, it is an important role of the consultation psychiatrist to recognize psychosocial factors that may be impacting a patient's pathology. This case exemplifies the importance of such education between psychiatric and transplant providers. Case: This is a 38-year-old divorced Russian man, with history of cannabis use and childhood trauma;and history of ESRD secondary to IgA nephropathy s/p DDKT on tacrolimus/mycophenolate/prednisone. Eighteen months after transplantation, in the setting of daily cannabis use, he developed psychosis with persecutory delusions, referential experiences, and experiences of thought alienation. The content of his delusions was tied closely to his experience of emigration from Russia, having spent his childhood in Volgograd/Stalingrad after the dissolution of the USSR. He was found to have a tacrolimus level of 20, above goal-range of 8-10. He was medically hospitalized and followed by psychiatry. The medical, transplant, and psychiatry teams collaborated to downtitrate his tacrolimus and initiate treatment with antipsychotic medication. His psychosis initially improved but recurred six months after discharge. At that time, there were several changes to his presentation of diagnostically significance. His tacrolimus level was found to be within goal. He had also recently recovered from COVID-19, self-discontinued olanzapine, and ceased cannabis use. The patient's new persecutory delusions developed concurrently with the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, raising suspicion that activation of trauma was playing a larger role. Discussion(s): Biologically, the effect of cannabis on immunosuppression through CYP3A4 inhibition is relevant, as is the independent relationship between cannabis, tacrolimus and psychosis1,2 At the time of writing, any effect of the change to belatacept is yet unknown. Psychologically, trauma history likely contributed to suspiciousness toward others and persecutory delusions. There is also evidence to suggest a relationship between trauma, cannabis and psychosis.3 Culturally, his sensation of being targeted was likely related to his Russian identity, immigrant status, and the current international conflict. Conclusion/Implications: This case demonstrates multiple contributing factors to psychosis in a patient post-transplant, which include psychological, trauma-related, and cultural factors in addition to those explained by pathophysiology of transplant, substance use, and immunosuppression. Transplant psychiatry has an essential role in educating our colleagues and patients about the multitude of contributors to psychiatric health post-transplant. References: 1. Nogueira JM, Freire MJ, Nova VV, Jesus G. When Paranoia Comes with the Treatment: Psychosis Associated with Tacrolimus Use. Case Rep Nephrol Dial. 2021;11(2):241-246. 2. Sikavi D, McMahon J, Fromson JA. Catatonia Due to Tacrolimus Toxicity 16 Years After Renal Transplantation: Case Report and Literature Review. J Psychiatr Pract. 2019;25(6):481-484. 3. Tomas-Roig J, Piscitelli F, Gil V, et al. Effects of repeated long-term psychosocial stress and acute cannabinoid exposure on mouse corticostriatal circuitries: Implications for neuropsychiatric disorders. CNS Neurosci Ther. 2018;24(6):528-538. Copyright © 2022
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People with disability may experience anxiety when wearing facemasks and being exposed to people wearing them. With COVID-19 public health orders stipulating the wearing of masks when outside of a private home, exposure to facemasks cannot be avoided. This paper presents a case study outlining a project by Mercy Connect, a disability service provider in Albury (Australia), to 'normalize' facemasks to participants during the period when a public health order to 'stay at home' was in place. Participants were offered the opportunity to create a mask design and enter it into a competition for a participants' and a people's choice award. The winning designs have been produced for distribution among participants and for sale to staff and the wider public. Inclusion and a reduction in anxiety were the key outcomes, along with a heightened sense of self-worth and achievement for the winners. Copyright © Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
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Most of our knowledge of the benefits and costs of telework are based on self-selected workers who have worked remotely part-time. Full-time, pandemic-induced mass telework may present benefits and costs that differ from what was understood in the prior context. Informed by conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study examines the effect of pandemic-induced remote working on work alienation in the public sector with two Canadian surveys: a panel of teleworking public servants (n = 605), and a representative sample of teleworking Canadians in public and private sectors (n = 1001). Teleworkers who fit the "conscientious" personality profile were less alienated in their new teleworker status, and by contrast "extroverts" were more alienated than before the pandemic. We then examine the types of organizational adaptations that lower alienation, and find that more autonomy, avoiding micromanagement and promoting communication among employees is most promising.
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Under koronapandemien har nær halvparten av alle ansatte i Norge jobbet fra hjemmekontor. Hva skjer i en situasjon hvor mange arbeidstakere, som kanskje har lite erfaring med det å jobbe hjemmefra, sendes hjem med en datamaskin og kun ser kolleger og ledere i digitale møter? Formålet med denne artikkelen er å undersøke arbeidtakeres erfaringer med hjemmekontor, og om fremmedgjøring kan være et nyttig begrep for å forstå disse erfaringene. Vi studerer fremmedgjøring som mangel på autonomi og handlekraft, fragmentert identitet, manglende fellesskap og mening i arbeidet. Basert på 26 kvalitative intervjuer med arbeidstakere undersøker vi hvordan hjemmekontor som arbeidsorganisering former arbeidstakeres forhold til sitt arbeid, de sosiale relasjonene i arbeidet og den relasjonen de har til produktene av sitt arbeid. Vi finner at ansvaret for grensesetting og skjerming av arbeidstid og gjennomføring av oppgaver på hjemmekontoret i stor grad er individualisert. Denne individualiseringen av ansvaret kan av arbeidstaker oppleves som noe positivt i form av økt autonomi og fleksibilitet. I individualiseringen og fleksibiliteten kan det samtidig ligge en risiko for fremmedgjøring: en følelse av ikke å ha tilstrekkelig handlekraft for å gjøre en god jobb, at arbeidstiden flyter inn i fritiden, familietiden eller privatlivet og motsatt, en mangel på et fellesskap med kolleger og opplevd meningsløshet i jobben. Forståelsen av disse opplevelsene som fremmedgjøring, fremfor individuelle problemer med grensesetting, viser at fremmedgjøring fremdeles kan være relevant for å forstå utfordringer i dagens arbeidsliv.Alternate :During the corona pandemic, almost half of all employees in Norway worked from a home office. What happens in a situation where many employees, who may have little experience of working from home, are sent home with a computer and only see their colleagues and managers in digital meetings? The purpose of this article is to examine employeesʼ experiences working in a home office, and whether alienation can be a useful concept to understand these experiences. We study alienation as a lack of autonomy and agency, as fragmented identity, a lack of meaningful social relationships with colleagues and a decreased meaning of work. Through 26 qualitative interviews with employees, we study how the home office impact the work organization, employeesʼ relationship to their work, the social relations at work and the relationship they have to the products of their labor. We find that the responsibility for setting working hours and carrying out tasks in the home office is largely individualized. This individualization of responsibility can be experienced as increased autonomy and flexibility for the employee. At the same time, there may be an alienation risk: feeling that one does not have sufficient agency to do a good job, that working time flows into leisure time and vice versa, the lack of a sense of community with others, and perceived meaninglessness in the job. The understanding of these experiences as alienation, rather than individual problems, shows that alienation can still be relevant for understanding challenges in todayʼs working life.
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The use of social robots has recently been investigated in various areas, including STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education and artistic performances. To inform children of the seriousness of climate change and awareness that they can make change, we created the Robot Musical Theater performance. In this project, natural elements (wind, earth, fire, and water) were anthropomorphized and represented by humanoid robots (Pepper, Milo, and Nao). The robots were designed to motivate audience to participate in the action to prevent climate change. Because of COVID, only fourteen visitors as a single group were allowed to participate in real-time and posted to YouTube, where at the time of submission, 141 people have viewed the performance. The participants provided positive comments on the performance and showed their willingness to participate in the movement to prevent climate change, and expressed their further interest in STEM learning. This performance is expected to contribute to enhancing informal STEM and robotics learning, as well as advancing robotic arts. © 2022 IEEE.