The COVID-19 Lived Experience Through the Eyes of Nursing and Social Work Students.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experiences of nursing and social work students who were taking courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Focus group discussions gave students a chance to express the pandemic's effects on their education and life. Methods: A hermeneutic phenomenological approach using Van Manen's Four Lifeworld Existentials guided this study. Using an open-ended format, interviews were conducted in 6 small groups ranging from 2 to 9 individuals, in person or via Zoom. The study was conducted from May to August 2022 in a university setting with 23 participants. Results: Ten existential themes emerged: Being Behind, Groundhog Day, Trying to Keep Up, Loss of Community, Fear of COVID, Being Alone, What is Self-Care?, Is This Career Right for Me?, What is Healthy?, and Access to Counseling. Conclusions: Participants indicated that the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted educational delivery, limiting learning opportunities and increasing feelings of isolation, stress, and anxiety. Implications for Education and the Future Workforce: Projected health-care workforce shortages may be exacerbated by students departing from the health-care professions as a result of increased burnout. Resilience training while in school is necessary to help promote coping, self-care strategies, and retention in the health-care professions.

Dose Matters in Evaluation of a School-Based Adolescent Sexual Health Education Program.

BACKGROUND: Research on the effects of intervention dose on outcomes within adolescent sexual health education programming is lacking. Existing research on dose typically utilizes the number of sessions as a variable. In a school setting, there are scheduling limitations, student absences, and other logistical barriers that have the potential to affect the number of sessions for an intervention and, in turn, impact the efficacy of programming. METHODS: This article evaluates the effectiveness of a school-based, peer-led adolescent comprehensive sexual health education program, with a focus on dose. A repeated measures MANOVA was used to evaluate the effects of individual difference variables and intervention variables on changes in participants' knowledge and attitudes across 2 time points. Additionally, paired t-tests were used to evaluate changes in specific behaviors. RESULTS: Results indicated that knowledge improved following the intervention, and specifically larger doses, measured in minutes, of the intervention were associated with larger improvements in knowledge. There were no significant effects related to attitudes or behavioral outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: This study adds to the knowledge base by including analysis of how the dose of intervention may impact youth outcomes. Implications for school health practices and research are discussed.

Thermodynamic and biophysical study of fatty acid effector binding to soybean lipoxygenase: implications for allostery driven by helix α2 dynamics.

Previous comparative kinetic isotope effects have inferred an allosteric site for fatty acids and their derivatives that modulates substrate selectivity in 15-lipoxygenases. Hydrogen-deuterium exchange also previously revealed regionally defined enhanced protein flexibility, centred at helix α2 - a gate to the substrate entrance. Direct evidence for allosteric binding and a complete understanding of its mechanism remains elusive. In this study, we examine the binding thermodynamics of the fatty acid mimic, oleyl sulfate (OS), with the monomeric model plant 15-LOX, soybean lipoxygenase (SLO), using isothermal titration calorimetry. Dynamic light scattering and differential scanning calorimetry rule out OS-induced oligomerization or structural changes. These data provide evidence that the fatty acid allosteric regulation of SLO is controlled by the dynamics of helix α2.

The influence of supervisor support, peer support, and Organizational culture among early career social workers in Child Welfare Services.

Previous studies have demonstrated that those who are in the first years of Child Welfare Services (CWS) employment are at particularly high risk for turnover. This study explored how the effects of support and organizational culture on retention (as the antidote for turnover) vary across different stages of CWS careers. A sample of 767 workers was divided into subgroups based on their years in CWS. A series of multilevel models were used to examine the differences between the groups. Findings include the crucial role supervisor support plays in retaining workers not only in their agencies, but in the field of CWS. In addition, passive defensive organizational culture has a negative effect on early career workers, but not on mid or late career workers. This suggests that a unique sensitivity to passive defensive organizational cultures exists early in CWS workers' careers that appears to dissipate over time. Implications for organizational practices are discussed.

Risk and safety assessment in child welfare: instrument comparisons.

The assessment of risk is a critical part of child welfare agency practice. This review of the research literature on different instruments for assessing risk and safety in child welfare focuses on instrument reliability, validity, outcomes, and use with children and families of color. The findings suggest that the current actuarial instruments have stronger predictive validity than consensus-based instruments. This review was limited by the variability in definitions and measures across studies, the relatively small number of studies examining risk assessment instruments, and the lack of studies on case decision points other than the initial investigation.