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Background: The fight against fake news, mainly spread through Internet, is a major public health issue, even among undergraduate students. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a website promoted by the Italian Federation of the Provincial Orders of the Medical Doctors as a first aid communication kit for health topics. Study design: Pre-post study using a web-based survey, conducted in April-May 2019 on Medical students and October-November 2020 on Communication Sciences students at the University of Florence (Italy). Methods: Undergraduate students of both schools were exposed to the use of the "dottoremaeveroche" website. Primary and secondary outcomes measures: the Italian-electronic Health Literacy Scale self-assessment tool was used to examine subjects' electronic Health literacy, and source quality. All responses were rated on a 5-point Likert scale. Changing in perception of abilities were examined using the Wilcoxon test. Results: The 362 participants felt moderately confident in electronic Health Literacy, with an initial Italian-electronic Health Literacy Scale overall mean score of 3.6±0.7 for medical and 3.2±0.8 for communication students. Medical students had a good idea of how to find helpful sources (3.9±0.8) and communication students felt confident in recognizing their quality (3.5±1.0). In contrast, their confidence in using Web information to make health decisions was low (medical: 2.9±1.1; communication: 2.8±1.1). All items improved significantly after "dottoremaeveroche" use (p<.001), with the overall mean score of Italian-electronic Health Literacy Scale increasing to 4.3±0.6 for medical and 4.1±0.8 for communication students. Conclusions: Low electronic health literacy levels can affect public health efforts, as seen during the COVID- 19 pandemic. The effectiveness of "dottoremaeveroche" among students showed the usefulness of online educational interventions that, if further implemented, could help combat the spread of infodemic.
RESUMO
Background The COVID-19 infodemic is putting pressure on public health systems to control the pandemic. With the internet and social media playing a key role in emergency communication, digital health literacy (DHL) can be considered a determinant of health. This study aims to assess the impact of infodemic on the skills of medical students, for whom low levels of DHL may affect the ability to identify the best available medical evidence. Methods A cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted at the University of Florence (Italy) in Apr-May 2019 (pre-pandemic period) and in Nov-Dec 2020 (pandemic period) to investigate DHL skills. Two different cohorts of students, both in their first year of medical school, participated in the survey. The 8-item self-assessment tool (IT-eHEALS) with a 5-point Likert scale was used to examine DHL. The change in perception of ability between the two cohorts was examined using the Wilcoxon test. Results A total of 329 students participated in the survey in 2019 (F: 58.1%;mean age 20.6±2.1) and 341 in 2020 (F:61.9%;mean age 19.8±2.0). In 2019, participants’ DHL level was moderate with a IT-eHEALS overall mean score (MS) of 28.4±5.8. Students had a good idea of how to find helpful health information (MS 3.9±0.8) and how to use the web for this purpose (MS 3.8±0.9), but they were less confident about the usefulness of the information they received (MS 2.9±1.1). In 2020, the medical students’ DHL level deteriorated as the overall MS of IT-eHEALS decreased to 23.4±7.2 (p < 0.01). The scores of the IT-eHEALS items were significantly lower and students indicated that they found it difficult to assess the information they found (MS 2.4±1.1;p < 0.01). Conclusions DHL can contrast infodemic, but the latter in turn may have a negative impact on perceived DHL skills if personal knowledge base is not well structured. Training programmes for medical students as future health care providers should be reinforces to guide their practise. Key messages Assessing digital health literacy is the first step in directing public efforts towards empowering educational programmes to improve health literacy. Medical students, as future health professionals, should be able to use the best evidence to help their patients identify healthy beliefs and behaviours to manage in health emergencies.
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Italy, the first European country that started the lockdown due to Covid-19, today is - still - in the midst of a mass biographical (or else, societal) disruption. Our everyday life has been completely overturned. During the first phase of the pandemic (March/April 2020) we conducted 20 episodic narrative interviews with childless, highly educated adults (11 females and 9 males, 29 to 36 years old) living in Northern Italy, the epicentre of the epidemic, to explore how residents reconstructed their everyday life. Interviewees report mixed feelings about staying locked in their homes: Cozyness but also restriction;easiness to call friends but forced physical isolation;doing work in places usually devoted to relax. Moreover, being forced to stay at home appears as a cognitive ambiguous situation in which people define themselves as persons 'in-waiting' in a 'hold-on' time. With COVID-19, something (very) familiar like everyday life became suddenly hostile and incomprehensible. We underwent a social disruption requiring new cognitive categories, new social practices and new habits. Our experience of the domestic sphere turned ambivalent. © 2021 Franco Angeli Edizioni. All rights reserved.
RESUMO
Italy, the first European country that started the lockdown due to Covid-19, today is - still - in the midst of a mass biographical (or else, societal) disruption. Our everyday life has been completely overturned. During the first phase of the pandemic (March/April 2020) we conducted 20 episodic narrative interviews with childless, highly educated adults (11 females and 9 males, 29 to 36 years old) living in Northern Italy, the epicentre of the epidemic, to explore how residents reconstructed their everyday life. Interviewees report mixed feelings about staying locked in their homes: Cozyness but also restriction;easiness to call friends but forced physical isolation;doing work in places usually devoted to relax. Moreover, being forced to stay at home appears as a cognitive ambiguous situation in which people define themselves as persons 'in-waiting' in a 'hold-on' time. With COVID-19, something (very) familiar like everyday life became suddenly hostile and incomprehensible. We underwent a social disruption requiring new cognitive categories, new social practices and new habits. Our experience of the domestic sphere turned ambivalent. © 2021 Franco Angeli Edizioni. All rights reserved.
RESUMO
Background The struggle against fake medical news, nowadays widely spread by web sources, is a main issue in public health especially in a pandemic period. Even among medical students, there is a lack of eHealth literacy (eHL) skills to solve medical problems. The Italian Medical Doctors Federation (FNOMCeO) promoted a Web source as a first-aid communication kit for basic notions in health hot-topics named “dottoremaeveroche” (DMVEC). This study aims to evaluate its effectiveness in improving eHL. Methods Between April and November 2019, medical students from the University of Firenze (Italy) joined a cross-sectional web-based survey before and after accessing the DMVEC Web source. The 8-item self-assessment tool (IT-eHEALS) was used to examine subject's eHL, in addition to questions on source's features and its quality. All responses were rated on a 5-points Likert scale. Changing of abilities' perception was assessed using Wilcoxon test. Results A total of 329 joined the survey, 42% male, mean age of 20.6±2.1. Participants felt moderately confident in eHL, in fact the initial eHEALS overall mean score was 3.6± 0.7. Students had a good perception on how to find helpful health resources (mean score 3.9±0.8) and how to use the Internet to answer health questions (mean score 3.8±0.9), but their ability in using this information to make health decisions was low (mean score 2.9±1.1). All items improved after the use of DMVEC, with overall mean score of IT-eHEALS increasing to 4.3±0.6 (p < 0.0001). Regarding source's quality, mean score related to transparency of sources, an aspect underestimated at first, increased from 3.5±1.2 to 4.7±0.7 (p < 0.0001). Conclusions Low levels of eHL can damage public health efforts, as seen during COVID19 pandemic. DMVEC effectiveness in medical students demonstrated that the scaling up to the general population of online educational interventions, with further implementation, could help in tackling infodemic and fake news spreading. Key messages Moderate levels of eHL among medical students could reflect lower levels in general population, highlighting this as critical issue in public health. Educational programs addressed to Health professionals could be adapted and empowered considering general population as target.
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Everyday life provides that reservoir of meanings which allows us to make sense of reality. It is the ‘taken-for-granted’ dimension of our existence. With this in mind, in this chapter we investigate the ʼnew normalities’ of life in lockdown. We conducted 20 in-depth interviews with a population of childless, highly educated young adults living in northern Italy. Participants report mixed feelings and experiences associated with being locked in their homes: cosiness alongside restriction;the freedom to call friends combined with forced physical isolation;the need to do work in places usually devoted to relaxing. Being forced to stay at home is also a cognitively ambiguous situation, in which people feel themselves to be ‘in-waiting’. In practical terms, the participants coped with this uncertainty by creating and adhering to rigid routines and new habits. We analyse the participants’ ‘definition of their situation’ in terms of the Freudian concept of the Unhemlich (the uncanny, but also the ‘unhomely’). The uncanny refers to the psychological experience of something as strangely familiar. It describes situations where something familiar appears in an unsettling context. Our hope is that this analysis will inform future research on the effects of the lockdown on mental health. © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Deborah Lupton and Karen Willis.