Disease-related challenges are often associated with perceived uncertainties in individuals, triggering attempts to cope with the situation. Our study aims to understand patients’ coping strategies regarding health information-seeking behaviors (HISBs). It is guided by the Uncertainty Management Theory, and seeks to grant insights into multi-channel HISB by describing how uses of interpersonal and media channels interact to cope with uncertainties, and how trust influences the process of multi-channel HISB. Patients diagnosed with osteoarthrosis (N (...) = 34) participated in qualitative semi-structured interviews, from which five patterns of multi-channel HISB, ranging from a focus on the physician to a focus on the internet, were identified. These patterns are distinguished by underlying functions of trust – including trust serving as an additional coping strategy, and as an important influencing factor for perceiving information as meaningful – and by whether information needs remain and patients turn to multiple sources. These findings form the basis for further theory development considering the iterative nature of HISB and the role of trust. (shrink)

PurposeThe main goals of this study are identifying the information needs of new North American immigrants to Israel and to ascertain which channels of information are used by the immigrants before and after immigration to try to satisfy their information needs.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative research approach was used for this study. Qualitative interviews were implemented as the primary strategy for data with the application of the grounded theory method for analysis.FindingsGeneral information needs categories included: housing, schooling, health, (...) banking and finances, drivers licenses, government‐related issues, legal issues and practical information. Personal information needs related to problems of “split” or prior immigration, changing over professional licenses, starting a business, children with special needs, and alternative medicine. Many of these needs were satisfied either prior to immigration or during the absorption process while others were left open leaving the immigrants with gaps in their knowledge, feelings of uncertainty and, at times, anxiety. During the preparations for immigration the greatest source of information came from the internet. After immigration, during the absorption process, word‐of‐mouth and personal contacts were the main sources for the immigrants to satisfy their information needs.Research limitations/implicationsAdditional research regarding immigration and immigrants from all different backgrounds is needed. Such research will help us learn more about other specific group's information needs and information seeking behavior.Practical implicationsBy learning and studying the information needs of immigrant's governments and immigration organizations can have a better understanding of how to assist immigrants have a successful integration into their new society.Originality/valueProspective immigrants, governments and immigration organizations can gain a deeper understanding of immigrant information needs and the channels used to satisfy those needs. (shrink)

This cross sectional study was carried out among the workers of British American Tobacco Company, Dhaka with a view to explore their nutritional status, personal hygiene and health seeking behavior as because they are working on a tobacco processing company. The sample size was 179 which were selected purposively. The study showed that out of 179 respondents 89 (49.7%) were in the age groups of 30-39 years and the mean age of the respondents were 31.99 ± 6.01 (...) years. A large number of respondents (55.9%) had monthly family income of Taka 10001-20000 and the mean family income was Taka 12776.54 ± 5230.13. Maximum respondents (73.7%) were Muslim, more than half (54.2%) were shift in charge, 39.1% of the respondents consisted of 4 family members, 43.6% respondents were accustomed to other type of eating habit and 38.5% respondents knew that malnutrition was the effect of lack of proper nutrition, 59.8% of the respondents knew that night blindness was the disease due to malnutrition, most of the respondents (91.6%) performed duties to maintain health, majority (62.0%) respondents used to do nothing to maintain healthcare for their children and 35.9% visited doctor’s single time in a month, 40.2% of the respondents told regular tooth brushing as type of healthy habits. Majority (64.8%) respondents used to brush twice a day, majority (50.8%) respondents used to wash hand after toileting, majority (62.08%) respondents used to bath daily, 43.0% and 31.8% of the respondents told that dysentery and diarrhea was due to eating without proper hand washing respectively. Majority (53.6%) respondents informed that they learned about personal hygiene from television, 45.8% respondents understood that use of safe water in every work as sanitation. Majority (50.84%) came from nuclear family; most (84.92%) had exercise habit and 40.22% had education level of class VIII. Most (75.42%) of the respondents had semi pucca houses and majority (69.83%) of the respondents used only water as materials for hand washing. This study provided some important information which might help the concerned authority to take appropriate measures to improve the health status of the workers. (shrink)

A session-based recommendation system is designed to predict the user’s next click behavior based on an ongoing session. Existing session-based recommendation systems usually model a session into a sequence and extract sequence features through recurrent neural network. Although the performance is greatly improved, these procedures ignore the relationships between items that contain rich information. In order to obtain rich items embeddings, we propose a novel Recommendation Model based on Multi-channel Convolutional Neural Network for session-based recommendation, RMMCNN (...) for brevity. Specifically, we capture items' internal features from three dimensions through multi-channel convolutional neural network firstly. Next, we merge the internal features with external features obtained by a GRU unit. Then, both internal features and external features are merged by an attention mechanism together as the input of the transformation function. Finally, the probability distribution is taken as the output after the softmax function. Experiments on various datasets show that our method's precision and recommendation performance are better than those of other state-of-the-art approaches. (shrink)

Accurately assessing youth mental health involves obtaining reports from multiple informants who typically display low levels of correspondence. This low correspondence may reflect situational specificity. That is, youth vary as to where they display mental health concerns and informants vary as to where and from what perspective they observe youth. Despite the frequent need to understand and interpret these informant discrepancies, no consensus guidelines exist for integrating informants’ reports. The path to building these guidelines starts with identifying factors (...) that reliably predict the level and form of these informant discrepancies, and do so for theoretically and empirically relevant reasons. Yet, despite the knowledge of situational specificity, few approaches to integrating multi-informant data are well-equipped to account for these factors in measurement, and those that claim to be well-positioned to do so have undergone little empirical scrutiny. One promising approach was developed roughly 20 years ago by Kraemer and colleagues. Their Satellite Model leverages principal components analysis and strategic selection of informants to instantiate situational specificity in measurement, namely components reflecting variance attributable to the context in which informants observe behavior, the perspective from which they observe behavior, and behavior that manifests across contexts and perspectives. The current study represents the first construct validation test of the Satellite Model. A mixed-clinical/community sample of 134 adolescents and their parents completed six parallel surveys of adolescent mental health. Adolescents also participated in a series of simulated social interactions with research personnel trained to act as same-age, unfamiliar peers. A third informant viewed these interactions and completed the same surveys as parents and adolescents. We applied the Satellite Model to each set of surveys and observed high internal consistency estimates for each of the six-item trait, context, and perspective components. Scores reflecting the trait, context, and perspective components displayed distinct patterns of relations to a battery of criterion variables that varied in the context, perspective, and source of measurement. The Satellite Model instantiates situational specificity in measurement and facilitates unifying conceptual and measurement models of youth mental health. (shrink)

Findings about the desire for health-risk information are heterogeneous and sometimes contradictory. In particular, they seem to be at variance with established psychological theories of information-seeking behavior.The present paper posits the decision about treating illness with medicine as the causal determinant for the expected net value of information, and attempts to explain idiosyncrasies in information-seeking behavior by using the notion of decision sensitivity to incoming information.Furthermore, active information avoidance is (...) explained by modeling the expected emotional distress potentially brought about by “bad news” as a disutility factor in pay-off maximization.In this context two notions of uncertainty are distinguished: an epistemic uncertainty related to the prognostic probability assigned to the risk, and an emotional uncertainty related to the expected damage. Health-risk information can both reduce epistemic and increase emotional uncertainty, giving rise to idiosyncratic processing strategies. (shrink)

Information-seeking behaviour of sniffer dogs during match-to-sample training in the scent lineup Qualitative and quantitative changes in dogs' information-seeking behaviours during the subsequent phases of operant conditioning training using a scent lineup, were investigated. Particular interest was paid to behaviours which may have an impact on errors committed by dogs at work in a scent lineup and thus on the reliability of the canine identification of humans on the base of scent. Significant individual differences were found (...) in dogs' performance in operant conditioning during match-to-sample trials. The style and time of sniffing the pattern scent sample as well as the searching time and number of stations sniffed in the lineup were found to influence the percentage of errors made by dogs. The effects of the dogs' routine e.g. omitting stations, using other cues than olfactory ones and effects of the non-verbal communications between handler and dog have been discussed. (shrink)

In this text, the authors propose an emotional health model based on a philosophical and psychological interpretation of human behavioral motivation which departs from traditional approaches in certain aspects while retaining other elements that seem meaningful. The model is predicated on the thesis that at least part of the reason for the current state of affairs is that educational and mental health institutions have been developed on the basis of misleading assumptions about the causes of behavior. Popular (...) assumptions regarding human behavior are challenged as inimical with respected scientific principles and sound logic. Contents: Conceptions of Life; Holonic Nature of Existence; Life: A Holarchic Contingency; Purpose 101; Epistemology; Mind 153; Mind: Information Channels; Mental Components; Emotion 255; Conflict, Control, and the Emergent Self; Behavior; Emotional Health and the Counseling Process; Behavior/Belief Alteration; Primary PreventionóA Look to the Future. (shrink)

The fact that Internet companies may record our personal data and track our online behavior for commercial or political purpose has emphasized aspects related to online privacy. This has also led to the development of search engines that promise no tracking and privacy. Search engines also have a major role in spreading low-quality health information such as that of anti-vaccine websites. This study investigates the relationship between search engines’ approach to privacy and the scientific quality of the (...) information they return. We analyzed the first 30 webpages returned searching “vaccines autism” in English, Spanish, Italian, and French. The results show that not only “alternative” search engines but also other commercial engines often return more anti-vaccine pages (10–53%) than Google (0%). Some localized versions of Google, however, returned more anti-vaccine webpages (up to 10%) than Google. Health information returned by search engines has an impact on public health and, specifically, in the acceptance of vaccines. The issue of information quality when seeking information for making health-related decisions also impact the ethical aspect represented by the right to an informed consent. Our study suggests that designing a search engine that is privacy savvy and avoids issues with filter bubbles that can result from user-tracking is necessary but insufficient; instead, mechanisms should be developed to test search engines from the perspective of information quality (particularly for health-related webpages) before they can be deemed trustworthy providers of public health information. (shrink)

In this article we explore how the experience of searching for Online Health Information becomes a meaningful activity in the lives of older adults living with chronic health conditions. A descriptive phenomenological approach was adopted to contribute to the overall understanding of individuals’ lived experiences of OHI-seeking through an exploration of the consciousness of the experiencer. This article provides rich experiential descriptions that have the potential to make a contribution toward healthcare practice within the UK by (...) providing healthcare professionals with an understanding of patient experience that can help them identify patients’ needs and make improvements to care in terms of the quality of empathy and understanding for older adults with chronic health conditions. The findings also provide rich stories of older adults actively engaging in this form of health information seeking, data that could be used to challenge pre-conceptions that age is a barrier to using the Internet for this purpose. (shrink)

People seeking asylum are at risk of receiving poorer quality healthcare due, in part, to racist and discriminatory attitudes, behaviours and policies in the health system. Despite fleeing war and conflict; exposure to torture and traumatic events and living with uncertainty; people seeking asylum are at high‐risk of experiencing long‐term poor physical and mental health outcomes in their host country. This article aims to raise awareness and bring attention to some common issues people seeking asylum (...) face when seeking healthcare in high‐income countries where the health system is dominated by a Western biomedical view of health. Clinical case scenarios are used to highlight instances of racist healthcare policies and practices that create and maintain ongoing health disparities; limited access to culturally and linguistically appropriate health services, and lack of trauma‐informed approaches to care. Nurses and midwives can play an important role in countering racism in healthcare settings; by identifying and calling out discriminatory practice and modelling tolerance, respect and empathy in daily practice. We present recommendations for individuals, organisations and governments that can inform changes to policies and practices that will reduce racism and improve health equity for people seeking asylum. (shrink)

In order to assure optimal care of patients with chronic illnesses, it is necessary to take into account the cultural factors that may influence health-related behaviors, health practices, and health-seeking behavior. Despite the increasing number of Romanian Roma, research regarding their beliefs and practices related to healthcare is rather poor. The aim of this paper is to present empirical evidence of specificities in the practice of healthcare among Romanian Roma patients and their caregivers. Using a (...) qualitative exploratory descriptive design, this study is based on data gathered through three focus groups with 30 health mediators in the counties of Iasi and Cluj (Romania). We identified various barriers to access to healthcare for Roma patients: lack of financial resources and health insurance coverage, lack of cognitive resources or lack of personal hygiene, but also important cultural issues, such as the shame of being ill, family function, disclosure of disease-related information, patient’s autonomy, attitudes towards illness and health practices, that should be considered in order to create a culturally sensitive environment in Romanian medical facilities:… The role of the health mediators within the context of cultural diversity is also discussed, as cultural brokers contributing to health care quality among Romanian Roma patients Bridging cultural differences may improve patient–healthcare provider relationships, but may have limited impact in reducing ethnic disparities, unless coupled with efforts of Roma communities to get involved in creating and implementing health policies. (shrink)

This article reviews key philosophical and legal underpinnings of mental health professionals' obligation to obtain informed consent from consumers of their services. The basic components of informed consent are described, and strategies for clinically and ethically appropriate methods of obtaining informed consent are discussed. Emerging issues in informed consent involving duty to assess and protect against client dangerousness, obligations to third parties, and issues of deception are considered as well. The article proposes that part of the process of obtaining (...) informed consent is the cultivation of a treatment environment that emphasizes beneficence and client autonomy. (shrink)

BackgroundAge related differences were found in prevention behavior, showing that older individuals tend to be the most proactive. The aim of the study was the identification of psychological predictors on COVID-19 prevention behavior in women, across four generations. In addition, the predictive role of the psychological variables was explored through the lens of negative and positive information processing perspective on total and domain-specific COVID-19 prevention behavior.MethodsA cross-sectional research was conducted. The sample included 834 Hungarian speaking women. (...) The assessed variables were: COVID-19 knowledge, risk perception, COVID-19 health anxiety, negative automatic thoughts, psychological flexibility, and four domains of COVID-19 prevention behavior (social distancing, general hygiene, information seeking, health behavior). A three-level hierarchical linear regression analysis was conducted to investigate the predictors of preventive behavior in each generation.ResultsA diversity across generations was found. In case of baby boomer generation, the final model explained 32.4% of the variance for total prevention behavior [F(14,215) = 8.847,p< 0.001], and only perceived risk made a significant contribution. For Gen X the final model accounted for 21.1% of variance of total prevention behavior [F(14,341) = 7.788,p< 0.001], marital status, perceived risk, COVID-19 health anxiety, and negative automatic thoughts made significant contributions. In case of Gen Y the final model accounted for 6.2% of variance on total prevention behavior [F(14,147) = 1.761,p= 0.05], only perceived risk had a contribution to the final model. For Gen Z the final model accounted for 23.4% of variance on total preventive behavior [F(13,71) = 2.979,p= 0.002], and only psychological flexibility made a contribution to the model. The results on the distinct domains of COVID-19 prevention behavior emphasized details in the dissimilarity among generations.ConclusionThe role of generational identity on COVID-19 prevention behavior is relevant. The coexistence of negative and positive information processing may have its beneficial role in certain areas of prevention. (shrink)

Health promotion efforts are commonly directed towards encouraging people to discard ‘unhealthy’ and adopt ‘healthy’ behaviours in order to tackle chronic disease. Typical targets for behaviour change interventions include diet, physical activity, smoking and alcohol consumption, sometimes described as ‘lifestyle behaviours.’ In this paper, I discuss how efforts to raise awareness of the impact of lifestyles on health, in seeking to communicate the need for people to change their behaviour, can contribute to a climate of ‘healthism’ and (...) promote the moralisation of people’s lifestyles. I begin by summarising recent trends in health promotion and introducing the notion of healthism, as described by Robert Crawford in the 1980s. One aspect of healthism is moralisation, which I outline and suggest is facilitated by efforts to promote health via information provision and educational strategies. I propose that perceived responsibility plays a role in mediating the tendency to moralise about health and behaviour. Since I argue that states ought to avoid direct and indirect moralisation of people’s health-related behaviour, this suggests states must be cautious with regard to the use of responsibility-indicating interventions to promote health. (shrink)

Maternal morbidity and mortality are high in the Indian context, but the majority of maternal deaths could be avoided by prompt and effective access to intrapartum care (WHO, 1999). Understanding the care seeking responses to intrapartum morbidities is crucial if maternal health is to be effectively improved, and maternal mortality reduced. This paper presents the results of a prospective study of 388 women followed through delivery and traditional postpartum in rural Karnataka in southern India. In this setting, few (...) women use the existing health facilities and most deliveries occur at home. The analysis uses quantitative data, collected via questionnaires administered to women both during pregnancy and immediately after delivery. By virtue of its prospective design, the study gives a unique insight into intentions for intrapartum care during pregnancy as well as events following morbidities during labour. Routine care in the intrapartum period, both within institutions and at home, and impediments to appropriate care are also examined. The study was designed to collect information about health seeking decisions made by women and their families as pregnancies unfolded, rather than trying to capture women’s experience from a retrospective instrument. The data set is therefore a rich source of quantitative information, which incorporates details of event sequences and health service utilization not previously collected in a Safe Motherhood study. Additional qualitative information was also available from concurrent in-depth interviews with pregnant women, their families, health care providers and other key informants in the area. The level of unplanned institutional care seeking during the intrapartum period within the study area was very high, increasing from 11% planning deliveries at a facility to an eventual 35% actually delivering in hospitals. In addition there was a significant move away from planned deliveries with the auxiliary nurse midwive (ANM), to births with a lay attendant or dai. The proportion of women who planned for an ANM to assist was 49%, as compared with the actual occurrence, which was less than half of this proportion. Perceived quality of care was found to be an important factor in health seeking behaviour, as was wealth, caste, education and experience of previous problems in pregnancy. Actual care given by a range of practitioners was found to contain both beneficial and undesirable elements. As a response to serious morbidities experienced within the study period, many women were able to seek care although sometimes after a long delay. Those women who experienced inadequate progression of labour pains were most likely to proceed unexpectedly to a hospital delivery. (shrink)

In recent years, the growing academic field called “Data Science” has made many promises. On closer inspection, relatively few of these promises have come to fruition. A critique of Data Science from the phenomenological tradition can take many forms. This paper addresses the promise of “participation” in Data Science, taking inspiration from Paul Majkut’s 2000 work in Glimpse, “Empathy’s Impostor: Interactivity and Intersubjectivity,” and some insights from Heidegger’s "The Question Concerning Technology." The description of Data Science provided in the scholarly (...) literature includes “the study of the generalizable extraction of knowledge from data” (Dhar 2013, 64), “data stewardship and data sharing…access to data at higher volumes and more quickly, and the potential for replication and augmentation of existing research” (Hartter et al., 2013, 1), and “personal information, health status, daily activities and shopping preferences that are recorded and used to give us instant feedback and recommendations based on previous online behavior.” (Shin 2013) United States universities have begun to offer graduate programs in “data science”, anticipating the growth of this field for marketing, national security, and health industries. These universities include New York University, Columbia University, Stanford, Northwestern, and Syracuse. (shrink)

Every day, students from marginalized communities disproportionately face adversity and trauma. It is well documented that exposure to adverse childhood experiences can impact children's ability to focus, learn, and even regulate their emotions. Many schools, rather than providing multi-tiered systems of support to address the root causes of behavior, place these students at greater risk of experiencing health disparities through the use of exclusionary school discipline practices. ESDs not only deny students important educational opportunities, but also can (...) compound existing social, economic, and health inequities. Thus, ESD practices must be understood as more than simply impacting what happens in the classroom. Instead, they should be conceptualized as public health policies with far-reaching impacts on a child's lifelong health and well-being. Even though school discipline has largely been overlooked by the public health community, current reform efforts are one aspect of a holistic health justice framework.This article seeks to begin to bridge current gaps in the literature and public discourse by identifying key linkages between ESD practices and health. It then presents evidence-based design principles to ensure education policy is aligned with a health justice framework. And finally, it explores a specific school-based intervention, restorative justice. (shrink)

Poor air quality is a pressing global challenge contributing to adverse health impacts around the world. In the past decade, there has been a rapid proliferation of air quality information delivered via sensors, apps, websites or other media channels in near real-time and at increasingly localized geographic scales. This paper explores the growing emphasis on self-monitoring and digital platforms to supply informational interventions for reducing pollution exposures and improving health outcomes at the individual level. It presents a (...) technological case study that characterizes emerging air quality information communication mechanisms, or ‘AQ channels’, while drawing upon examples throughout the literature. The questions are posed: which air quality channels are ‘freely’ available to individuals in London, UK, and when and where are they accessed? Digital trace data and metadata associated with 54 air quality channels are synthesized narratively and graphically. Results reveal air quality channels derive air pollution estimates using common data sources, display disparate messaging, adopt variable geographic scales for reporting ‘readings’ and maintain psychosocial barriers to access and adoption of exposure-reducing behaviours. The results also point to a clear association between the publication of a high-profile news article about air pollution and increased air quality channel access. These findings illuminate a need for greater transparency around how air quality channels generate personalized air pollution exposure estimates and tailor messaging. The paper concludes by calling for air quality channel developers to exercise co-creative methods that can support sustainable, democratic data and knowledge production around air quality, while critically approaching disproportionate patterns of both pollution and information exposure. (shrink)

Many students have experienced the death of a loved one, which increases their risk of grief and mental health problems. Formal and social support can contribute to better coping skills and personal growth in bereaved students. The purpose of this study was to examine the support that students received or wanted to receive and its relation to students’ mental health. We also looked at students’ needs when receiving support and barriers in seeking formal and social support. Participants (...) completed an online survey consisting of questions about their sociodemographic characteristics, the support they received or wanted to receive, and support needs and barriers in seeking support. The survey also included three scales assessing grief, mental health distress, and personal growth. First, we analyzed the data descriptively. Next, we used MANCOVA to examine whether students who did or did not receive or wanted more support differed in terms of their grief, mental health distress, or personal growth. About 30% of students needed more support and experienced more grief and mental health distress than students who had their support needs met. Students who received support experienced more personal growth and grief than students who did not receive support. Students indicated a need for feeling acknowledged and safe. Feeling like a burden to others and perceiving their problems as not serious enough to warrant support were common barriers to seeking support. Our results indicate that support should be provided actively to students after the death of a loved one, and support being available on an ongoing basis. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic poses a health threat that has dominated media coverage. However, not much is known about individual media use to acquire knowledge about COVID-19. To address this open research question, this study investigated how the perceived threat is linked to media use and how media use is associated with perceived and actual knowledge about COVID-19. In a German online survey conducted between April 16 and April 27, 2020, N = 952 participants provided information on their perceived (...) threat and media use to inform themselves about COVID-19. In this process, they indicated how well they were informed about COVID-19 and subsequently completed a COVID-19 knowledge test. Results indicated that individuals who felt more threatened by COVID-19 used media more often to inform themselves but focused on fewer different media channels. Further, frequent media use was associated with higher perceived knowledge, but not with higher actual knowledge about COVID-19, reflecting an illusion of knowledge. Additionally, using fewer media channels was linked to higher perceived and actual knowledge. Finally, explorative analyses on the use of different media channels revealed that an illusion of knowledge emerged for using social media, public television, and newspapers. Potential explanations for the findings and implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Understanding neural anatomy and physiology depends on first understanding the behaviour being mediated. Glover, in his review of earlier work suggesting various dichotomies in visual processing, shows how there is a tendency to oversimplification if this approach is ignored. His own new proposals demonstrate the advantages of allowing function to drive anatomical analysis. Nevertheless, the new planning–control dichotomy he proposes, though a valuable advance, is itself an oversimplification of what must be a multi-channel system.

Rebecca Brown and Julian Savulescu1 focus on individuals’ responsibility regarding health-related behaviours. They rightly argue that paying attention to diachronic and dyadic aspects of responsibility can further illuminate the highly multifaceted concept of personal responsibility for health. Their point of departure is a pragmatic one. They note that personal responsibility ‘is highly intuitive, [that] responsibility practices are a commonplace feature of almost all areas of human life and interpersonal relationship [and that] the pervasiveness of this concept [suggest] the (...) improbability of banishing it entirely’. Indeed, despite—or perhaps even quite independent of—decades of mostly sceptical conceptual analysis of the concept of personal responsibility by philosophers and others, it endures, if not flourishes. These separate dynamics raise the question of how, in years ahead, the debate on responsibility can be furthered most effectively, and how nuanced conceptual distinctions can effectively inform policy and practice. The authors’ table 1 matrix illustrates how different levels of control and knowledge people had at different timepoints might be grouped in categories of low, moderate or high demandingness: for policy makers sympathetic to the authors’ proposal that high levels of demandingness should undermine responsibility attributions, or for advocacy groups seeking to lobby on their behalf, several questions likely arise, including: How should …. (shrink)

Mental health crisis has been reported as the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Grief at the loss of loved ones, shock at the loss of jobs, isolation of restrictions of movements, difficult family dynamics, and uncertainty and fear of the future are just few of the psychological sufferings pointed out by the World Health Organization. To ensure that people are mentally healthy, the government takes mental health services as essential part of the responses to the pandemic. (...) Private organizations and academic institutions also take part in this movement to safeguard the mental well-being of people in the community. Despite the efforts to prevent and remediate mental health crisis, limited number of people seek professional help. While we can assume that they might have been adjusting well to the anxieties brought about by Covid-19 pandemic, we also acknowledge the fact that a number of cases of depression and suicide had been reported in the locality for the past five months. This paper aims to provide expositions of the possible variables for young Filipino College Students’ underutilization of mental health services as well as their other possible sources of inner strength and resiliency during the Covid-19 pandemic. Help seeking behaviors of the Young Filipino students in Cor Jesu College will be explored using the lens of uncertainty and anticipation model of anxiety of Grupe and Nitschke, and resilience as a cultural variable among Filipinos. (shrink)

Until about thirty years ago, the extent of disclosure about and consent-seeking for medical interventions was influenced by a beneficence model of professional behaviour. Informed consent shifted attention to a duty to respect the autonomy of patients. The new requirement arrived on the American scene in two separate contexts: for daily practice in 1957, and for clinical study in 1966. A confusing double standard has been established. 'Daily consent' is reviewed, if at all, only in retrospect. Doctors are merely (...) exhorted to obtain informed consent; they often minimise uncertainties about 'best' treatment and they feel duty-bound to provide patients with an unequivocal recommendation for action. 'Study consent' in a clinical trial is reviewed prospectively, and doctors are compelled by regulation to point out that there is insufficient evidence to make a rational choice between two compared treatments. It has been impossible to devise informed consent practices that satisfy, in full, the competing moral imperatives of respect for autonomy, concern for beneficence with emphasis on the value of health, and a vigil for justice. A way must be found to experiment with various discretionary approaches that would strike a realistic balance among competing interests. (shrink)

The new Hungarian Labour Code allows informal payments to be accepted, subject only to the prior permission of the employer. In Hungary, the area most affected is Health Care, where informal payments to medical staff are common. The article assesses the practice on ethical terms, focusing on organisational justice. It includes an analysis of distributional injustice, that is, of non-equitable payments to professionals, on the distribution of payments depending on the specialisation and status of the doctor, on his or (...) her rights to allocate Health Care resources and/or on how assertive he or she is. We show, by means of a content analysis of internet postings and of interviews with physicians, the feelings and attitudes of both patients and doctors—thus enabling us to trace interactional and procedural injustice and portray the main driving forces of informal payment with causal loops. We use a new approach (a system dynamics computer simulation) to demonstrate how informal payments influence therapy procedures. The example of treating the common skin disease of psoriasis examines the specific behaviour of doctors in their everyday practice and estimates the extent to which the prescription of unnecessary or more expensive therapy increases the costs. With this multi-method approach, we demonstrate that the legislation allowing informal payment represents bad ethics, since it enforces organisational injustice, creates mistrust between physicians and patients, decreases performance and increases the total costs paid both by society and the Health Insurance Fund. Informal payments distort the allocation of resources, enforce discrimination based solely on money, violate the concept of solidarity and limit Human Rights in terms of health. (shrink)

Genomic research and biobanking present several ethical, social and cultural challenges, particularly when conducted in settings with limited scientific research capacity. One of these challenges is determining the model of consent that should support the sharing of human biological samples and data in the context of international collaborative research. In this paper, we report on the views of key research stakeholders in Ghana on what should count as good ethical practice when seeking consent for genomic research and biobanking in (...) Africa. This study was part of a multi-country qualitative case study conducted in three African countries: Ghana, Uganda and Zambia under the auspices of the Human Heredity and Health in Africa initiative. Our study suggests that while participants are willing to give consent for their samples and associated data to be used for future research purposes, they expect to receive feedback about the progress of the research and about the kinds of research being undertaken on their samples and data. These expectations need to be anticipated and discussed during the consent process which should be seen as part of an ongoing communication process throughout the research process. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Genomic research and biobanking present several ethical, social and cultural challenges, particularly when conducted in settings with limited scientific research capacity. One of these challenges is determining the model of consent that should support the sharing of human biological samples and data in the context of international collaborative research. In this paper, we report on the views of key research stakeholders in Ghana on what should count as good ethical practice when seeking consent for genomic research and biobanking (...) in Africa. This study was part of a multi-country qualitative case study conducted in three African countries: Ghana, Uganda and Zambia under the auspices of the Human Heredity and Health in Africa initiative (H3Africa). Our study suggests that while participants are willing to give consent for their samples and associated data to be used for future research purposes, they expect to receive feedback about the progress of the research and about the kinds of research being undertaken on their samples and data. These expectations need to be anticipated and discussed during the consent process which should be seen as part of an ongoing communication process throughout the research process. (shrink)

Protecting the privacy of individually-identifiable health data and promoting the public’s health often seem at odds. Privacy advocates consistently seek to limit the acquisition, use, and disclosure of identifiable health information in governmental and private sector settings. Their concerns relate to misuses or wrongful disclosures of sensitive health data that can lead to discrimination and stigmatization against individuals. Public health practitioners, on the other hand, seek regular, ongoing access to and use of identifiable (...) class='Hi'>health information to accomplish important public health objectives. The collection and use of identifiable health data by federal, tribal, state, and local health authorities support nearly all public health functions and goals.Identifiable health data are the lifeblood of public health practice. When aggregated, these data help authorities monitor the incidence, patterns, and trends of injury and disease in populations. Health data are acquired by public health authorities through testing, screening, and treatment programs. (shrink)

Protecting the privacy of individually-identifiable health data and promoting the public’s health often seem at odds. Privacy advocates consistently seek to limit the acquisition, use, and disclosure of identifiable health information in governmental and private sector settings. Their concerns relate to misuses or wrongful disclosures of sensitive health data that can lead to discrimination and stigmatization against individuals. Public health practitioners, on the other hand, seek regular, ongoing access to and use of identifiable (...) class='Hi'>health information to accomplish important public health objectives. The collection and use of identifiable health data by federal, tribal, state, and local health authorities support nearly all public health functions and goals.Identifiable health data are the lifeblood of public health practice. When aggregated, these data help authorities monitor the incidence, patterns, and trends of injury and disease in populations. Health data are acquired by public health authorities through testing, screening, and treatment programs. (shrink)

The author suggests that a “first generation” task in bioethics is to give patients the information they need; a “second generation” task is to do this in the most effective way; and a “third generation” task is to avoid harming patients by imposing value biases. The author discusses ways to pursue this third generation task.

This article explores the hypothesis that third parties are motivated to seek information about agents who have behaved unethically in the past, even if the agent and available information are irrelevant to the third parties’ goals and interests. We explored two possible motives for this information seeking behavior: deonance, or the motive to care about ethics and justice simply for the sake of ethics and justice, and distrust-based threat monitoring. Participants in a consumer decision task (...) were found to seek out information about an agent who had behaved unethically even when the agent was explicitly excluded from the task; there were no intentions to purchase from the agent; performance expectations for the agent’s product were low; the information that could be sought was non-diagnostic, redundant or irrelevant to an ethical judgment; and alternatives in the market offered as good or better value as the unethical agent. Critically, this information seeking took place even when the observer could disengage from and was not vulnerable to the agent. The findings are discussed in terms of third party information seeking and its effects on ethical behavior in the marketplace. (shrink)

Drawing on social exchange theory, the present study seeks to understand how ethical leaders channel followers’ responses to positive treatment from the organization into a dutiful mindset, resulting in in-role and extra-role performance. Specifically, it examines the influence of perceived organizational support on both followers’ job performance and organizational citizenship behaviors, and the mediating effects of duty orientation on such relationships. In addition, it examines whether the mediated effects are contingent on the ethical leadership exhibited by the team leader. (...) Based on multi-source, multi-level data obtained from 233 employees in 60 teams from the Chinese public sector, we found that ethical leadership moderated the mediated relationship between perceived organizational support and follower work behaviors through duty orientation, such that this relationship was stronger in the presence of higher ethical leadership. (shrink)

Using tombstoning (jumping from a height into water) as an example, this article claims that public health policies and health promotion tend to assess the moral status of activities following a version of health maximizing rule utilitarianism, but this does not represent common moral experience, not least because it fails to take into account the enjoyment that various health effecting habits brings and the contribution that this makes to a good life, variously defined. It is proposed (...) that the moral status of health threatening activities should instead be defined by a version of act utilitarianism where both maximizing value and method of calculation are decided by individuals. In this account personal responsibility for health is reduced to the obligation to undertake calculations effectively, comprising of two duties; epistemic and reflective. If there is an individual epistemic duty, it is plausible to suggest that health promotion should present information in a way which facilitates it, but despite the prevalent language of autonomous choice, discussion of health promotion messages, for example, related to drinking and smoking demonstrates that this currently does not happen. Health promotion strategies should seek to encourage reflection about the harm our health effecting behaviour causes others. (shrink)

This study explores the relationship between self-compassion and mental health of postgraduates based on the perspective of the dual-factor model of mental health and the mediating role of help-seeking behavior. A total of 605 postgraduates were investigated with a questionnaire. The results showed that the DFM of mental health was better than the one-factor model for the mental health status of postgraduates. Among them, those with complete mental health accounted for the highest proportion, (...) followed by vulnerable, troubled, and symptomatic but content. Self-compassion and non-professional help-seeking behavior had a positive predictive effect on positive mental health factors of the postgraduates, while self-compassion had a negative predictive effect on their psychological symptoms. Non-professional help-seeking behavior played a partial mediating role between self-compassion and positive mental health factors. (shrink)

Commercial genetic testing offered over the internet, known as direct-to-consumer genetic testing (DTC GT), currently is under ethical attack. A common critique aims at the limited validation of the tests as well as the risk of psycho-social stress or adaption of incorrect behavior by users triggered by misleading health information. Here, we examine in detail the specific role of advertising communication of DTC GT companies from a medical ethical perspective. Our argumentative analysis departs from the starting point (...) that DTC GT operates at the intersection of two different contexts: medicine on the one hand and the market on the other. Both fields differ strongly with regard to their standards of communication practices and the underlying normative assumptions regarding autonomy and responsibility. Following a short review of the ethical contexts of medical and commercial communication, we provide case examples for persuasive messages of DTC GT websites and briefly analyze their design with a multi-modal approach to illustrate some of their problematic implications. We observe three main aspects in DTC GT advertising communication: (1) the use of material suggesting medical professional legitimacy as a trust-establishing tool, (2) the suggestion of empowerment as a benefit of using DTC GT services and (3) the narrative of responsibility as a persuasive appeal to a moral self-conception. While strengthening and respecting the autonomy of a patient is the focus in medical communication, specifically genetic counselling, persuasive communication is the normal mode in marketing of consumer goods, presuming an autonomous, rational, independent consumer. This creates tension in the context of DTC GT regarding the expectation and normative assessment of communication strategies. Our analysis can even the ground for a better understanding of ethical problems associated with intersections of medical and commercial communication and point to perspectives of analysis of DTC GT advertising. (shrink)

Stimulant drugs, transcranial magnetic stimulation, brain-computer interfaces, and even genetic modifications are all discussed as forms of potential cognitive enhancement. Cognitive enhancement can be conceived as a benefit-seeking strategy used by healthy individuals to enhance cognitive abilities such as learning, memory, attention, or vigilance. This phenomenon is hotly debated in the public, professional, and scientific literature. Many of the statements favoring cognitive enhancement (e.g., related to greater productivity and autonomy) or opposing it (e.g., related to health-risks and social (...) expectations) rely on claims about human welfare and human flourishing. But with real-world evidence from the social and psychological sciences often missing to support (or invalidate) these claims, the debate about cognitive enhancement is stalled. In this paper, we describe a set of crucial debated questions about psychological and social aspects of cognitive enhancement (e.g., intrinsic motivation, well-being) and explain why they are of fundamental importance to address in the cognitive enhancement debate and in future research. We propose studies targeting social and psychological outcomes associated with cognitive enhancers (e.g., stigmatization, burnout, mental well-being, work motivation). We also voice a call for scientific evidence, inclusive of but not limited to biological health outcomes, to thoroughly assess the impact of enhancement. This evidence is needed to engage in empirically informed policymaking, as well as to promote the mental and physical health of users and non-users of enhancement. (shrink)

PurposeThis paper aims to examine information and communication science, knowledge and power in relation to a TV “docu‐fiction”. In particular, it will look at the decision‐making processes of individuals and groups.Design/methodology/approachCore information behaviour such as selection and evaluation are examined.FindingsSome concepts from the fields of information or communication studies are critically examined, e.g. “gatekeeper” or “classification” and re‐analysed in a TV and multi‐channel broadcasting environment.Practical implicationsPositive conclusions show the possible impact of expanding information culture, (...) competence and selection skills, whereby attention is paid to the ethical consequences of information mise en scène.Originality/valueThe obvious, popular and close example of the RTBF “docu‐fiction” can be a model to re‐think and reflect many information programmes and narratives. (shrink)

Protecting the privacy of individually-identifiable health data is a dominant health policy objective in the new millennium. Technological, economic, and health-related reasons substantiate the development of a national electronic health information infrastructure. Through this emerging infrastructure, billions of pieces of health data of varying sensitivities are exchanged annually to provide health care services and service transactions, conduct health research, and promote the public’s health. These multi-purpose, rapid exchanges of electronic (...) class='Hi'>health data, far removed from the typical disclosure of health information through the doctor/patient relationship of yesteryear, contribute to heightened individual concerns about identifiable health data. Responding to American fears and perceptions of actual and potential privacy abuses, policymakers have recently developed new, modern privacy protections through legislative and regulatory laws, as well as ethical and industry codes.Modern health information privacy protections are reflected in federal regulations developed by the federal Department of Health and Human Services pursuant to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. (shrink)

Reflecting upon the lies that are tied to rebukes is a fundamental step in the analysis of interactions between health-care professionals and their clients. Our research focuses on questions that incite people to lie, namely, those for which a lying response avoids a rebuke or a judgment based on some type of behaviour. Our objectives are: 1) to characterize the `question/response' exchange that is interpreted as a `potential rebuke/ lie' exchange, and the questions that may induce lying; 2) to (...) identify the strategies that health-care professionals implement in order to obtain the information they seek when questioning their clients; and 3) to identify themes that refer to behavioural norms that clients might be inclined to lie about. The results are based on the assumption that there are ties between behaviour and speech acts, in this case between the transgression of behavioural norms and lying. (shrink)

The enrolment of children and adolescents in health research requires that attention to be paid to specific assent and consent requirements such as the age range for seeking assent; conditions for parental consent (and waivers); the age group required to provide written assent; content of assent forms; if separate assent and parental consent forms should be used, consent from emancipated young adults; reconsent at the age of adulthood when a waiver of assent requirements may be appropriate and the (...) conditions for waiving assent requirements. There is however very little available information for researchers and ethics committees on how to navigate these different issues. To provide guidance to research initiatives, the SickleInAfrica consortium conducted a thematic analysis of a sample of research ethics guidelines and procedures in African countries, to identify guidance for assent requirements in health research. The thematic analysis revealed that 12 of 24 African countries specified the age group for which assent is required. The minimum age for written assent varied across the countries. Five countries, Algeria, Botswana, Cameroon, Nigeria and The Democratic Republic of Congo require consent from both parents/family council in certain circumstances. Botswana, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda have specific assent/consent requirements for research with emancipated minors. South Africa and Algeria requires re-consent at onset of adulthood. Five countries (Botswana, Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania) specified conditions for waiving assent requirements. The CIOMS and the ICH-GCP guidelines had the most comprehensive information on assent requirements compared to other international guidelines. An interactive map with assent requirements for different African countries is provided. The results show a major gap in national regulations for the inclusion of minors in health research. The SickleInAfrica experience in setting up a multi-country SCD registry in Africa highlights the need for developing and harmonising national and international guidelines on assent and consent requirements for research involving minors. Harmonisation of assent requirements will help facilitate collaborative research across countries. (shrink)

When accessing healthcare services, LGBT+ individuals are often exposed to segregating and marginalizing discourses. Knowledge about how such experiences are reflected in the moral world of LGBT+ individuals living in Turkey is limited. This study examined LGBT+ individuals’ lived experiences when utilizing healthcare services. The findings are discussed in terms of moral discourses related to LGBT+ individuals’ gender identity and sexual orientation. A qualitative field study was conducted using semi-structured interviews with fifty-five LGBT+ individuals from Turkish cities who were in (...) contact with various non-governmental organizations that conduct studies on gender identity and sexual orientation. A questionnaire was administered with items on participants’ demographic information, experiences, behavioural patterns, and knowledge regarding healthcare services. The data were analysed thematically. The findings were evaluated within the framework of “access to healthcare service” theme related to “healthcare service demand” context. Additionally, the “interaction with physicians” theme was addressed in the context of “physician–patient/counselee relationship.” LGBT+ individuals state that they are exposed to stigmatizing and segregating discourses by healthcare professionals, which might pose an obstacle for adaptive health-seeking behaviours. These results suggest that physicians’ professional approach has a considerable influence on LGBT+ individuals’ capacity for utilizing healthcare services. (shrink)

Protecting the privacy of individually-identifiable health data is a dominant health policy objective in the new millennium. Technological, economic, and health-related reasons substantiate the development of a national electronic health information infrastructure. Through this emerging infrastructure, billions of pieces of health data of varying sensitivities are exchanged annually to provide health care services and service transactions, conduct health research, and promote the public’s health. These multi-purpose, rapid exchanges of electronic (...) class='Hi'>health data, far removed from the typical disclosure of health information through the doctor/patient relationship of yesteryear, contribute to heightened individual concerns about identifiable health data. Responding to American fears and perceptions of actual and potential privacy abuses, policymakers have recently developed new, modern privacy protections through legislative and regulatory laws, as well as ethical and industry codes.Modern health information privacy protections are reflected in federal regulations developed by the federal Department of Health and Human Services pursuant to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. (shrink)

This paper argues that journalists’ discursive actions in an outbreak context manifest in identifiable rhetorical motifs, which in turn influence the delivery of biomedical information by the media in such a context. Via a critical approach grounded in rhetorical theory, I identified three distinct rhetorical motifs influencing the reportage of health information in the early days of the H1N1 outbreak. A public-health motif was exhibited in texts featuring a particular health official and offering the statements (...) of such an official as a mechanism of reassurance. A concealment-of-information motif was exhibited in texts emphasizing the importance of the transparency of health officials, and in texts demonstrating ambivalence about information provided by socially-sanctioned sources. Finally, in texts mythologizing the outbreak to the exclusion of other functions of the text, I identified a pandemic motif. Each motif differs in the conclusions it offers to audiences seeking to gauge relative levels of risk, and to receive information about protective behaviours. I suggest that one means of interpreting the manifestation of distinct rhetorical motifs in the context of a high-risk health threat is the certainty that this context alters moral responsibilities, consequently influencing the manifestation of narrative role. (shrink)

The lifetime prevalence of major depressive disorder in adolescents is reported to be as high as 20%; thus, MDD constitutes a significant social and public health burden. MDD is often associated with nonsuicidal self-injury behavior, but the contributing factors including cognitive function have not been investigated in detail. To this end, the present study evaluated cognitive impairment and psychosocial factors in associated with MDD with NSSI behavior. Eighteen and 21 drug-naïve patients with first-episode MDD with or without (...) NSSI and 24 healthy control subjects were enrolled in the study. The Hamilton Anxiety Scale, Hamilton Depression Scale, Adolescent Self-injury Questionnaire, Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation–Chinese Version, Shame Scale for Middle School Students, Sensation Seeking Scale and Childhood Trauma Questionnaire were used to assess depression-related behaviors, and event-related potentials were recorded as a measure of cognitive function. The latency of the N1, N2, P3a, P3b, and P50 components of ERPs at the Cz electrode point; P50 amplitude and P50 inhibition showed significant differences between the 3 groups. CTQ scores also differed across three groups, and the NSSI– and NSSI+ groups showed significant differences in scores on the Shame Scale for Middle School Students. Thus, cognitive function was impaired in adolescents with MDD with NSSI behavior, which was mainly manifested as memory decline, attention and executive function deficits, and low anti-interference ability. We also found that childhood abuse, lack of social support, and a sense of shame contributed to NSSI behavior. These findings provide insight into the risk factors for MDD with NSSI behavior, which can help mental health workers more effectively diagnose and treat these patients. (shrink)