"Let's Talk About Wellbeing!”: Fostering Interdependence in Doctoral Communities

The Ph.D. genre captures the complexity and plurality of practices generally confronting doctoral scholars, creating challenges and at times contributing to wellbeing concerns. The arrival of COVID-19 has exacerbated such challenges with its associated mandatory self-isolation and other imposed measures, leading to explicit and implicit impact on members of the doctoral community. This autoethnographic study draws upon the collective reflections of a group of researchers as they explored practical ways of fostering and supporting mental health and wellbeing within the doctoral community. Our study highlights three aspects for consideration: (a) a holistic understanding of doctoral wellbeing as key, (b) the interconnection between doctoral scholars' and staff members' well-being, and (c) communities serving as avenues to psychological wellness. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022.

Psychological and social results of COVID-19 pandemic in relation to physical activity: a narrative review

The study aims to investigate and evaluate the impact of physical activity on human health and psychology during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the search for scientific literature related to this review the US National Library of Medicine (PubMed) used MEDLINE and SPORTDiscus data and the terms "covid-19 ", "physical activity ", and "human psychology ", were used. The relevant literature has also taken its source from the research of relevant articles from reference lists derived from data studies. Quarantine measures limited the lives of many all over the world. Being apart from family and friends, not being able to act freely and the vagueness of the future affected societies deeply. The importance of physical activity on mental and bodily wellbeing is undeniable. Therefore, home-based or low-risk outdoor physical activities are highly encouraged to survive the pandemic in the psychological and social sense. These activities consist of running up and downstairs, walking, doing push-ups and sit-ups, yoga, etc.In conclusion, ever since the Covid-19 pandemic started, there has been a pandemic of psychological and social problems as well. It is the statement of this study that physical activity is a key factor that should be included in people's lives to manage the pandemic healthily as possible.

Impact of covid-19 on education, psychological wellness and life style of dental students in Saudi Arabia.

The COVID-19 epidemic has had a significant impact on dental education, psychological health, and students' way of life worldwide. The new methods of teaching and learning had to be adapted by dental educational institutions. Due to lifestyle changes, COVID-19 had a major negative influence on students' mental health. Therefore, it is of interest to assess depression; anxiety and stress scale (DASS-21) levels experienced by dental students and compare them with gender and course of students. A cross-sectional survey based descriptive study was conducted among 356 undergraduate dental students, aged between 18-31 years, at Riyadh Elm University, Riyadh, kingdom of Saudi Arabia from January - March, 2022. A self-administered structured questionnaire written in English and Arabic language was given to all the willing participants. Four components of the questionnaire covered demographic information, the effect of COVID-19 on dental education, psychological health, and student lifestyle. In order to establish statistically significant variations across genders and student course levels regarding the effect of COVID-19 on dentistry education, the Chi-square test was used. Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare depression, anxiety, stress scales (DASS- 21) with variables such as gender and course level of students. Statistical significance was set at p-value <0.05.A total of 356 dental students were involved in this study with the total response rate of 92.2%.Majority of the respondents were males (56.2%) than females 156 (43.8), aged between 18-22 years (53.4%). Overall, moderate levels of the depression, anxiety and stress scores (DASS-21) were seen among 46.9%, 30.3% and 35.6% of the dental students, respectively. Thus, it can be concluded that COVID-19 pandemic had a profound impact on dentistry students' education, mental health, and way of life. More women and dentistry students on the clinical level felt the effects on their education. In order to implement psychological empowerment initiatives integrating institutional counseling services for students, the right steps should be done.

The Psychological Well-Being of Southeast Asian Frontline Healthcare Workers during COVID-19: A Multi-Country Study.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the prevalence of anxiety, depression, and job burnout among frontline healthcare workers (HCWs) across six Southeast Asian countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. We also investigated the associated risk and protective factors. METHODS: Frontline HCWs (N = 1381) from the participating countries participated between 4 January and 14 June 2021. The participants completed self-reported surveys on anxiety (GAD-7), depression (PHQ-8), and job burnout (PWLS). Multivariate logistic regressions were performed with anxiety, depression, and job burnout as outcomes and sociodemographic and job characteristics and HCW perceptions as predictors. RESULTS: The average proportion of HCWs reporting moderate anxiety, moderately severe depression, and job burnout across all countries were 10%, 4%, and 20%, respectively. Working longer hours than usual (Odds ratio [OR] = 1.82; 3.51), perceived high job risk (1.98; 2.22), and inadequate personal protective equipment (1.89; 2.11) were associated with increased odds of anxiety and job burnout while working night shifts was associated with increased risk of depression (3.23). Perceived good teamwork was associated with lower odds of anxiety (0.46), depression (0.43), and job burnout (0.39). CONCLUSION: Job burnout remains a foremost issue among HCWs. Potential opportunities to improve HCW wellness are discussed.

Can Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs) for Stress Recovery in Green Hotels Affect Re-Patronage Intention?

Our research framework in this paper investigated natural-based solutions (NBSs) at green hotels. We employed attention restoration theory (ART) to test the mediating effect of perceived stress (PS), psychological wellness (PW), satisfaction (SA), and the moderating effect of health consciousness (HC) on re-patronage intentions (RI). Data were collected through a survey of 544 customers who frequently visited green hotels in Korea, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the research hypotheses. The findings generally supported the hypothesized associations of the study variables within our proposed theoretical framework (PS, PW, SF) in order of the mediating effect on RI and confirmed the moderating effect of HC. In addition, the study’s results have important theoretical and practical implications for the environment. In the former case, our results demonstrate the application of ART and NBS by explaining the effect of the relationship among PS, PW, and SF on RI and confirm the mediating effect of the ART (PS, PW, SF) on RI, as demonstrated in previous studies. Moreover, in the latter case our results may encourage green hotels to participate in the prevention of environmental problems.

Face to Face with Coronavirus Disease 19: Maintaining Motivation, Psychological Safety, and Wellness.

Emerging infectious diseases have the potential to spread across borders extremely quickly. This was seen during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak and now, coronavirus disease (COVID 19) (novel coronavirus) pandemic. For outbreaks and pandemics, there will be behavioral, affective, and cognitive changes and adaptation seen. This may be prominent in frontline workers and healthcare workers (HCWs), who work in high-risk areas, as well as people in general. What represents the psychology and mindset of people during a pandemic? What is needed to allay anxieties and instill calm? What will be needed to keep the motivation levels of people and HCW high so that they continue to function optimally? Which motivation theory can be used to explain this and how do employers and management utilize this in their approach/strategies in planning for an outbreak? Finally, the impact of culture, in the various contexts, cannot be overlooked in crisis and pandemic management. The author is a senior emergency physician in Singapore, who has been through SARS and now the COVID pandemic. She has been instrumental in sharing some of the changes and practices implemented in Singapore, since SARS 17 years ago, until now. Besides being a full-time practicing emergency physician, the author is also an elected Member of the Singapore Parliament for the last 14 years. She shares her views on an aspect often overlooked during a pandemic: psychological wellness and motivations of people, including for HCW at the frontline.

Data on occupational health and safety strategies influencing the reduction of coronavirus in South Africa.

This data article describes raw statistics on occupational health and safety strategies influencing the reduction of coronavirus in South Africa. The purpose of this research was to investigate factors that could potentially influence the reduction of the spread of COVID-19 in a municipality setting. The following independent constructs are explored: physical wellness, psychological wellness, Intellectual wellness, intellectual wellness, emotional wellness and social wellness. In addition to the individual dependent variables, the influence of these constructs on the reduction of COVID-19 transmission and employee performance at a selected municipality was tested. Hypotheses emerged from the proposed influence of each of these constructs on reduction of COVID-19 transmission at a municipality. Smart PLS was used to measure the impact of the proposed hypotheses of the research. In order to describe data on the respondents' characteristics, SPSS and SMART PLS was used to generate the relevant statistics. The data generated for this research could potentially advise on how healthy and safety strategies could contribute to lowering the transmission of COVID-19 at a municipality.