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Loyalty towards digital health services has received unprecedented attention and acceptance during the Covid-19 pandemic period. However, whether this popularity will be retained into the future and the factors that can influence such loyalty is undetermined. This paper provides insight into this issue through a cross-cultural examination of the influence of digital service quality (e-quality) on consumer satisfaction and loyalty (e-loyalty) in the digital health service sector during a pandemic. A fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) is applied using a sample of 50 customers drawn from different professions across different countries who actively showed loyalty towards digital health during the pandemic. Research constructs evaluation for reliability and internal consistency was subsequently performed using Cronbach's alpha and Correlation analysis. The results reveal a significant positive relationship between service quality and the twin outcomes of consumer satisfaction and loyalty, while the findings established satisfaction as a prominent mediator for digital health. Findings from the fsQCA analysis identified four core factors that underpin loyalty in digital health platforms. Alternative paths have been identified based on gender, current education status, and other professions. In addition, two topologies are introduced taking digital health services from different platforms during the pandemic. Because of the primary nature of the data, this is first-hand experience gathered from the people who are directly or indirectly involved in receiving help from digital health services in a pandemic context. The application of the fsQCA technique for examining loyalty towards digital health services is applied in the e-health or digital health literature for the first time. The study findings will assist digital health service providers seeking insight into the factors that influence loyalty of e-health service consumers, enabling them to focus more accurately on the service quality dimensions that are effective in influencing consumer satisfaction and retention. The findings of this study contain a number of contributions, illustrating different topologies towards digital health that provide educators and policymakers with valuable insights.
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Purpose: The COVID-19 epidemic has brought attention to the variables that influence the mental health of health workers who are entrusted with nursing individuals. Despite the fact that many articles have examined the effects of social media usage on mental health, there is a lack of research synthesizing learning from this body of research. The purpose of this study is to use text mining and citation-based bibliometric analysis to conduct a detailed review of extant literature on health workers' mental health and social networking habits. Design/methodology/approach: This study conducts a full-text analysis of 36 articles selected on health workers' mental health and social media using text-mining techniques in R programming and a bibliometric citation analysis of 183 papers from the Scopus database in VOS viewer software. But the limitations of the methods used in this study are that the bibliometric analysis was limited to the Scopus database because the VOS viewer program did not support any other database and the text-mining approach caused the natural processing redundancy. Findings: The bibliometric analysis reveals the thematic networks that exist in the literature of health workers' mental health and social networking. The findings from text mining identified ten topic models, which helped to find the related papers classified in ten different groups and are provided alongside a summary of the published research and a list of the primary authors with posterior probability through Latent Dirichlet Allocation. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first hybrid review, combining text mining and bibliometric review, on health workers' mental health where social networking plays a moderating role. This paper critically provides an overview of the impact of social networking on health workers' mental health, presents the most important and frequent topics, introduces the scientific visualization of articles published in the Scopus database and suggests further research avenues. These findings are important for academics, health practitioners and medical specialists interested in learning how to better support the mental health of health workers using social media. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.
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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to lower hospital admissions and higher mortalities associated with chronic conditions such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases. The Rapid Access Lung Clinic (RALC), established in 2009 for immediate assessment of individuals at risk of lung cancer, has experienced reduced functioning particularly during the pandemic peaks in Ireland. Therefore, we undertook a retrospective chart review of the 2019-2021 referrals and attendances at the Cork University Hospital (CUH) RALC to determine the impact of COVID-19 on this pathway. Methods: The medical charts of patients referred to CUH RALC from 03/2019 to 02/2020 (period I), and from 03/ 2020 to 02/2021 (period II), were reviewed after ethical approval was obtained. Clinicodemographic characteristics including age, sex, and hometown were extracted. Average time to acquire the first CT scan, consultation at RALC, and receiving a diagnosis of cancer were calculated using the date of referral and compared between periods I and II using the t-test. Frequency and the stages of cancer diagnosis in periods I and II were compared using a Chi-squared test. Progression-free and overall survivals were measured from diagnosis date until 09/2020 for period I and 09/2021 for period II. Results: Of the 1192 medical charts reviewed;687 patients in period I and 505 patients in period II were referred to RALC;indicating a 26.5% reduction in the number of referrals during the first year of the pandemic. Average monthly referrals (p = 0.008) and reviews (p = 0.017) were significantly lower in period II compared to period I and corresponded with the COVID-19 peaks in 04/2020 and 01/2021 in Ireland. However, no significant difference was seen in the length of time from referral to review at RALC (p = 0.11). There were 33% fewer post-referral CT scans performed (p = 0.032) and shorter wait times from referral to CT scan in period II (p = 0.001). The frequency of cancers detected did not differ between periods I and II. While there was no difference in the wait times from referral to diagnosis between periods, patients ultimately diagnosed with lung cancer in period II received surgery sooner than patients in period I (p = 0.024). Progression-free and overall survivals for patients diagnosed with lung cancer were comparable between periods I and II. Conclusions: Contrary to our hypothesis, we have shown that the COVID-19 pandemic had minimal impact on the performance of RALC. Shorter wait times for CT scan and surgery during the pandemic account for fewer hospital referrals and availability of CT scanner. Fewer referrals to RALC in period II may relate to the fewer patients attending their general practitioner (GP) and/or GPs raising the thresholds for referrals to RALC during the pandemic. Ultimately, a national evaluation will be required to fully determine the impact of this pandemic on lung cancer diagnosis, management, and outcomes in Ireland.
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The Internet of things (IoT) describes the network of physical objects that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices over the internet [1]. This ecosystem is one that has potential to be an important tool in long-term rehabilitation care and to break down physical barriers in access to care. RIoT is an incredibly relevant subject in rehabilitation medicine, especially in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic. This scoping review was created to look at the current literature available on the application of IoT in the context of rehabilitation, charting both areas of interest and the gaps present in the research. We devised a search strategy, inclusion/exclusion criteria and a data extractionmethod according to the PRISMA-SCR guidelines. The results of this scoping review found that research into RIoT applications in clinical care is an area of increasing interest. This is especially true for stroke rehabilitation, and of the use of wearables for physiological monitoring. This review also found that gaps do remain in the field, as many projects are in the early stages of development and clinical feasibility is still unknown due to small study sizes.
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Even before the global halt to extensive mobility due to the coronavirus crisis, there has been growing resistance amongst some groups to flying. Reflecting increasing concern about the imminent climate emergency, the phenomenon of feeling ashamed of flying and expressing related emotions through communication has resulted in the neologism "flygskam". Drawing on 14,212 Twitter posts that contained "flygskam" and a further 1037 using the English "flightshame", this research examined the spatial-temporal spread of these words from Sweden starting in 2016 to the rest of the world indicating a global phenomenon. The findings indicate that national context continues to be important in understanding the nexus of individual and social sensemaking and processing of new information. They also demonstrate, however, that global networks (facilitated through social media) might challenge the needs of physical mobility as requirements to connect, exchange views, and create identity through peer group membership. Further analysis of the content revealed key perspectives and topics, providing insight into the relatively homogeneous discussions amongst a network community. Only 6% of posts rejected the notion, whilst the majority indicated support and advanced suggestions for more sustainable alternatives. It might be too early to say whether language behaviour expressed in online communication translates into real behaviour, but the current pandemic may well provide further impetus to no-fly movements by way of a strategic alliance between different peer groups.
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We introduce a study examining people's privacy concerns during COVID-19 and reflect on people's willingness to share their personal data in the interest of controlling the spread of the virus and saving lives.
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Background: In December 2019 a cluster of pneumonias, later identified as SARS-CoV-2 (CoV), were reported in China. The first case in Ireland was reported February 29th 2020. The first community acquired case in Ireland was reported March 5th. The World Health Organisation declared CoV a pandemic March 11th. Lockdown measures were implemented in Ireland March 27th. Cork University Hospital is a large acute hospital and a tertiary referral center for cancer care. We undertook an audit of unscheduled medical oncology admissions over a 3 month period with a view to assess the impact of CoV on the centre. Method(s): From 1st February to 30th April we audited unscheduled medical oncology admissions. Parameters included presenting time, location and complaint, CoV status and average length of hospital stay (aLOS). Data was organised into 3 phases: four week period prior to a confirmed case of CoV in Ireland (phase I), four week period from confirmed case to lockdown implementation (phase 2) and four week period during lockdown (phase 3). After the outbreak of CoV we developed a separate medical oncology assessment facility (AOS) with an admission pathway. A hospital CoV pathway (CoVp) for potential CoV cases was also implemented. Result(s): A total of 162 medical oncology patients had unscheduled admissions during this period. Over half (57%) were receiving anticancer systemic treatment. The most common presenting complaints were pain (21%), pyrexia (17%) and dyspnoea (14%). The underlying diagnosis was cancer-related in 51%, treatment-related toxicity in 10% and non-cancer related in 39%. One patient was CoV positive. Unscheduled hospital admissions, source of admission and aLOS are outlined in the Table. [Formula presented]. Conclusion(s): A reduction in aLOS and ED admissions was paralleled by increasing use of alternative pathways. Processes which facilitate urgent assessment of oncology patients in specialized units avoid ED attendance and accelerate discharge planning in the care of cancer patients in the face of a pandemic and beyond. Legal entity responsible for the study: The authors. Funding(s): Has not received any funding. Disclosure: All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.Copyright © 2020
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Contact tracing apps used in tracing and mitigating the spread of COVID-19 have sparked discussions and controversies worldwide with major concerns around privacy. COVID Tracker app used in the Republic of Ireland was praised in general for the way it addressed privacy and was used as baseline for other contact tracing apps worldwide. The success of the app is dependent on the general public uptake, hence their voice and attitude is the one that really matters. This paper focuses on developing a survey and the methods aiming to examine the attitudes toward privacy during COVID-19 of the general public in the Republic of Ireland and their impact on the uptake of the COVID tracker app. Various privacy models are used and health belief model as well in this purpose. A pilot study with 286 participants show a change in attitude towards privacy during COVID-19 pandemic, with more people willing to share their data in the interest of saving lives. However, privacy attitudes are shown to have impacted the adoption of the app in Ireland. © 2021 Owner/Author.