ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has proven to be detrimental to the psychological well-being of healthcare providers (HCP). This study was a psychological intervention during the COVID-19 pandemic to check extent to which brief mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) and progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) affect psychological well-being, resilience, and anxiety of HCPs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A randomized trial study conducted from July to August 2020. One hundred and forty-seven COVID-19 frontline HCPs were randomized to a 2-week virtual intervention with a brief MBI or a PMR. Pre- and postintervention assessments were done using the State-Trait Anxiety-20-Item Scale, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-10, and WHO-5 Well-Being Index. RESULTS: The final sample included 125 HCPs (64 in BMI group and 61 in PMR group) who completed pre- and post-intervention assessment. The results showed a significant improvement in the psychological well-being and reduction of the state anxiety of the two groups, but not in the trait anxiety or resiliency. Improvement was more in the group's brief MBI (81.3%) than in the group's PMR (51.8%) (P = 0.0001), concerning psychological well-being. CONCLUSION: Both the brief MBI and PMR improved the psychological well-being and reduced the anxiety of frontline healthcare providers during the COVID-19 pandemic with a slightly better improvement in the brief MBI.
ABSTRACT
Nowadays, in a world full of uncertainties and the threat of digital and cyber-attacks, blockchain technology is one of the major critical developments playing a vital role in the creative professional world. Along with energy, finance, governance, etc., the healthcare sector is one of the most prominent areas where blockchain technology is being used. We all are aware that data constitute our wealth and our currency; vulnerability and security become even more significant and a vital point of concern for healthcare. Recent cyberattacks have raised the questions of planning, requirement, and implementation to develop more cyber-secure models. This paper is based on a blockchain that classifies network participants into clusters and preserves a single copy of the blockchain for every cluster. The paper introduces a novel blockchain mechanism for secure healthcare sector data management, which reduces the communicational and computational overhead costs compared to the existing bitcoin network and the lightweight blockchain architecture. The paper also discusses how the proposed design can be utilized to address the recognized threats. The experimental results show that, as the number of nodes rises, the suggested architecture speeds up ledger updates by 63% and reduces network traffic by 10 times.
