scholarly journals Positive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic? A longitudinal study on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physicians’ work experiences and employability

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. e050962
Author(s):  
Evelien H van Leeuwen ◽  
Toon Taris ◽  
Elizabeth L J van Rensen ◽  
Eva Knies ◽  
Jan-Willem Lammers

ObjectiveThe COVID-19 pandemic places an enormous demand on physicians around the world. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physicians’ work experiences and their ability and willingness to continue working in their profession until retirement (ie, their employability).DesignA longitudinal comparative design was used. Survey data were collected on three moments: before (May 2019), in the early phase (May 2020) and in a later phase (November 2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic. Time effects were tested using repeated-measures analyses of variance and one-way analyses of variance.SettingThis study took place among physicians of two hospitals in a large city in the Netherlands.Participants165 hospital physicians with surgical, medical and other specialties participated in this study.ResultsPhysicians’ employability significantly increased from the time prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, compared with the period during this pandemic. Employability differs among physicians with surgical, medical and other specialties. Furthermore, physicians experienced a lower emotional, physical and quantitative workload during the first peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, compared with before the pandemic. Moreover, physicians experienced the most stress from the impact of COVID-19 on their work in general and from combining work and private life.ConclusionsThis study shows that physicians’ employability and work experiences are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Work experiences vary for physicians with different specialties. These varieties stress the importance of attention for physicians’ individual needs and challenges regarding working during the COVID-19 pandemic and the possibility of continuing work in the aftermath of this crisis. Based on this, physicians can be offered tailor-made solutions. This is important to maintain a healthy and employable workforce, which is essential for a sustainable healthcare system.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (6) ◽  
pp. 46-59
Author(s):  
Nur Laila Molla

COVID-19 is the most devastating pandemic in human history. Every aspect of human life on earth is disrupted, with little or no education. Many countries have decided to close schools, colleges, and universities, including Indonesia. The crisis came as a shock to governments in every part of the world, including Indonesia, which had to make drastic decisions to close their schools and save lives or to reopen schools in order to save workers’ livelihoods. The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of the spread of covid-19 in the world of education. 75 respondents used for sample. The sample selection method used was the target sample. An analytical tool used to assess product duration and determination. Test results show that the spread of Covid-19 has a positive impact on the education world. The study found that the spread of covid-19 affects the world of education.


Author(s):  
Kelvin Joseph Bwalya ◽  
Tanya Du Plessis ◽  
Chris Rensleigh

With widespread adoption of ICT usage in public service delivery platforms (e-Government) throughout the world, African countries have vowed not to be left behind in this marathon. Robust e-Government adoption depends on the strategy employed to implement it. This paper presents the different initiatives that have been employed to promote e-Government development and development in Botswana, Mozambique and Malawi thereby showing the impact of such initiatives on overall e-Government agenda. Using extensive document and literature reviews, this paper further intends to investigate the status of e-Government implementation in these three countries and understand the multi-dimensional factors that dictate adoption and use of e-Government services. The paper has found that deliberate fiscal ICT policies, trust of e-applications, availability of ICT infrastructures such as appropriate mobile phone and base stations technology, usability of ICT platforms, and relevant ICT skills of ordinary citizens have a lasting positive impact on people’s intention to engage in e-Government.


Author(s):  
Justyna Żywiołek

Personalization, mobility, artificial intelligence, corporate life transferred to the world in social media - all these elements will shape corporate social media in the near future. It is necessary to consider what features and what standards of behaviour enterprises will have to meet in order to build an image in the world of social media and adapt to the preferences and requirements of the client. Corporate social media has been created to support clients in using various services, give them the possibility of easy communication without time and place barriers. Therefore, high-quality corporate social media profiles significantly affect trust in the company and can affect its reputation. Considering that the aim of the article is to examine the impact of social media on the image of the company, various exchanges of perception of the quality of corporate social media, the risks they bring for the company and the perception of them by customers, which gives the image, were examined. The results of empirical research indicate that the secu-rity, simplicity and variety of m-banking services have a significant impact on the perceived qu-ality, which in turn has a positive impact on reputation. The author proposed a methodology based on the Kano model and customer satisfaction in order to examine the declared needs and unspecified desires and divide them into different groups with different impact on consumer satisfaction. The study took the form of an original, universal questionnaire that can be used in other similar studies. The analysis included 861 correctly completed questionnaires, and the ob-tained results were included in the management's action plans after their submission. Enterpri-ses expressed their interest that the measures taken should be reviewed after one to two years.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tetiana Tokhtamysh ◽  
◽  
Oleksandr Yaholnytskyi ◽  
Kateryna Hranko ◽  
◽  
...  

The article looks over the degree of implementation of FinTech services in the world. It’s determined that the leading countries in the implementation of FinTech are China, India, and South Africa. Crucial influencing factor is demographic, rather than the widespread demand among the population for modern technology. The penetration rate of these services in the United States, where the largest technology companies in the world are located, was only 46%. The share of service users among the population that actively use digital technologies reaches 33%. Noted that the objects of investment of American banks are startups, programming applications of open interfaces and platforms for third-party developers. European banks also aim to invest actively in the development of FinTech but are still more focus on their own development. It is determined that Asian, Australian and African banks tend to develop technological solutions on their own. According to experts, the number of partnership agreements in the world with FinTech companies will increase each year. The analysis of the regional structure of global investments in FinTech carried out. It showed a positive dynamics of investment during 2014–2019. Increasing the size of global investments is due to the interest of investors in new projects and business models. Venture capital investment priorities coincide with global ones and are related to reviewing, updating, and improving business processes. The amount of venture capital invested in FinTech projects stimulates the development of the financial industry, mainly in China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. They account for almost 9 times more investment in FinTech than in other countries. Correlation-regression analysis was applied to investigate the relationship between the level of development of the FinTech market and foreign direct investments. According to the results of calculations, the largest impact on foreign direct investment has the volume of venture investment in FinTech-projects and the FinTech market development rating. This proves the positive impact of FinTech companies on the growth of foreign investments in the country.


Author(s):  
Daniel Augustinus ◽  
Agnes Agnes

Social networking sites have been emerged and transformed the world, bringing the world and its people closer. Social media which are part of social networking sites have become more effective in marketing tools; it helps in creating opportunities and awareness to consumers. Social media platform such as Instagram has recently become the most popular social networking sites among the young people. In addition, selling and market the products in the virtual store on Instagram represents a new shopping mode for most consumers, especially youngsters both men and women, and they represent an important role in influencing fashion consumer purchase decision through social networking sites. This study attempted to investigate impact of social networking sites towards consumer purchase decision on fashion industry. Therefore, questionnaires are spreaded out to 110 respondents who are social media users in Medan in order to gather the necessary information and data. The results of this research, it is concluded that social networking sites (the usability of Instagram) influences and give impact towards consumer purchase decision on fashion. Moreover, both of the variables have a strong relationship on each other and considered to be linear. The results also demonstrate that Instagram influences fashion consumer purchase decision through its usability such as good metrics, eye catching content, and recommendations from others. Furthermore, Instagram is also proved to have a positive impact towards consumer purchase decision by creating awareness, provide satisfaction feeling and creating virtual communities which may motivates consumer to do an online purchase.  


Author(s):  
Larissa G. Titarenko ◽  
Ruben V. Karapetyan

Article is written on the basis of an analysis of empirical data obtained in 2021 from sociological studies conducted in Saint Petersburg and Minsk – cities with a population of one million, which served as the object of research of the current digital transformation. A feature of both samples was the large percentage of people with higher education among the employed population. In fact, we studied a group of urban professionals. The authors identify trends in the world of work that detail digital transformation processes. The purpose of the article is to describe the trends in the digitalisation process in the world of work in a large city and to reveal how relevant these trends are for the Belarusian and Russian professionals. The authors show the level of digital acquisition of the employed urban population today, as well as the impact on this process of the previous year associated with the pandemic and the inevitable transition of a part of the employed population to remote work. The article presents the factors that determine the labour motivation of urban professionals of different levels in their mastering of information and communication technologies, reveals the development trends of labour digitalisation processes and their impact on certain groups of professionals employed in both production and non-production spheres. It is concluded that the motivation of the employed population to master new digital knowledge directly depends on how much a person needs it in the workplace, contributes to his career advancement or helps to keep the workplace.


Author(s):  
Sharon Tonner-Saunders ◽  
Jill Shimi

This paper reports on the impact on student teachers’ professional skills, knowledge and attitudes of engaging in the eTwinning international Hands of the World (HOTW) project which connects over 2000 students and their teachers in 50 schools across the world to undertake a wide range of educational collaborative work, supported by digital and online technologies. The University of Dundee’s HOTW project won the eTwinning prize for the best project two years running and is the only university to have won this annual prize. Student teachers are working in a world where digital technology is firmly embedded and undergoing rapid expansion and change. This study examined the experiences of student teachers as they engaged in a global project to develop their knowledge and understanding of intercultural learning using ICT. An explanatory sequential mixed method design analyzed data publicly available on YouTube™ and Padlet™. Two main data sets were used: responses to professional development webinars and reflections on participating in the project. Data were analyzed thematically focusing on ICT competence, pedagogy and relevance. Participation in the project enhanced the students' ICT competence and confidence to use and explore technology for current and future teaching practice through contextualization and social learning. Our analysis enabled us to identify that the Covid-19 lockdown had a positive impact on the students' learning due to time, space, and relevance. This paper demonstrates that engagement in a contextualized project enabled student teachers to develop their ICT competences and that for many, lockdown provided a conducive learning environment.


Author(s):  
Emmanuel Yamoah Cobbold ◽  
Dan Owusu

This research studies the impact of macroeconomic shocks from African and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on China’s bilateral trade with them. Data on (GDP) per capita, FDI, inflation, unemployment rates, and trade openness (TO) of China’s African and ASEAN partners were sourced from the World Bank whilst imports and exports data were from the world integrated trade solutions (WITS). It uses the gravity model as a basis and the panel corrected standard errors (PCSE) as well as multivariate regression estimators. The findings reveal that per capita of China’s partners have a strong positive impact on trade with them. Trade openness is reported to increase China’s imports but reduce exports to these partners. Further, an increase in FDI inflows to China’s trade partners leads to an increase in both imports and exports of China. KEYWORDS: Economic shocks, international trade, China, Africa, ASEAN, gravity model


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arun V. Ravindran ◽  
Andres Herrera ◽  
Tricia L. da Silva ◽  
Joanna Henderson ◽  
Magda Esther Castrillo ◽  
...  

Background.High rates of mental illness and addictions are well documented among youth in Nicaragua. Limited mental health services, poor mental health knowledge and stigma reduce help-seeking. The Mental Health Curriculum (MHC) is a Canadian school-based program that has shown a positive impact on such contributing factors. This pilot project evaluated the impact of the MHC on mental wellness and functioning among youth in Leon, Nicaragua.Methods.High school and university students (aged 14–25 years) were assigned to intervention (12-week MHC; n  =  567) and control (wait-list; n  =  346) groups in a non-randomized design. Both groups completed measures of mental health knowledge, stigma and function at baseline and 12 weeks. Multivariate analyses and repeated measures analyses were used to compare group outcomes.Results.At baseline, intervention students showed higher substance use (mean difference [MD]  =  0.24) and lower perceived stress (MD = −1.36) than controls (p  <  0.05); there were no other group differences in function. At 12 weeks, controlling for baseline differences, intervention students reported significantly higher mental health knowledge (MD  =  1.75), lower stigma (MD  =  1.78), more adaptive coping (MD  =  0.82), better lifestyle choices (MD  =  0.06) and lower perceived stress (MD = −1.63) (p  <  0.05) than controls. The clinical significance as measured by effect sizes was moderate for mental health knowledge, small to moderate for stigma and modest for the other variables. Substance use also decreased among intervention students to similar levels as controls (MD  =  0.03) (p > 0.05).Conclusions.This pilot investigation demonstrates the benefits of the MHC in a low-and-middle-income youth population. The findings replicate results found in Canadian student populations and support its cross-cultural applicability.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agata Ewa Wróbel ◽  
Carina Lomberg ◽  
Philip Cash

Abstract Facilitation style appears to be an important determinant of design team effectiveness. The neutrality of the group facilitator may be a key factor; however, the characteristics and impact of neutrality are relatively understudied. In a designed classroom setting, we examine the impact of two different approaches to group facilitation: (i) facilitator’s neutrality expressed as low equidistance and high impartiality and (ii) facilitator’s neutrality expressed as high equidistance and low impartiality, on team trust, trust to the facilitator and team potency. To do this, we conducted a repeated-measures experiment with a student sample. Our results indicate that facilitators expressing neutrality through low equidistance and high impartiality had a greater positive impact on team trust. The two approaches did not differ on team potency and facilitator trust. These results contribute to developing theories of design facilitation and team effectiveness by suggesting how facilitation may shape team trust and potency in group design. Based on our findings, we point to the need for future work to further examine the impact of facilitator’s process awareness and neutrality, and show how facilitation methods may benefit teams during creative design teamwork.


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