Coping with COVID-19 pandemic lockdown – The lady doctors perspective

Objectives: This study is about the challenges faced by the women doctors in India during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Material and Methods: We conducted an online survey in 2020 for women doctors who were professionally engaged in active patient management in India before the onset of the current pandemic. Results: A total of 260 valid responses were received. Only 28% (73/260) were able to provide at least 50% of professional services as compared to the pre COVID-19 lockdown period. Statistically significant differences related to emotional health (feelings), physical activity, changes in how family sees the lady professional, personal free time availability, and family bonding. Conclusion: COVID-19 has led to the following important concerns for professional women - academic productivity; work-life balance; missed opportunities for collaborating; mental health, the need for equity-minded academic leadership, and decision-making. Our study showed that majority were stressed during the COVID-19 lockdown – with the impact being highest among those giving more than 50% of their time to professional medical services outside their homes.

Opportunities and Challenges for Family-Centered Postpartum Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study of Nurse Perspectives

Background The global COVID-19 pandemic has forced the health care sector to make wide-ranging changes to protect patients as well as providers from the risk of infection. Many of these changes are likely to have greatest impact in contexts of care that employ family-centered models, including perinatal and maternity care. Research conducted in prenatal, childbirth and postpartum settings during the pandemic has shown that some of these restrictions have negatively impacted health care practice and outcomes, while others have been beneficial to both providers and patients. The present qualitative study aimed to understand what changes have occurred in postpartum nursing practice during the pandemic, and how these changes have affected nurses, women and families during their stay in the hospital following a new birth.MethodsStructured interviews were completed with 20 postpartum nurses from five hospitals across Texas. The interview protocol was designed to elicit information about changes to hospital policies in postpartum units during the pandemic, nurses’ attitudes about these changes, perceived benefits and challenges for performance of their duties, and perceived effects on patients and their families. Nurses were recruited for the study using a purposive sampling approach. Interviews were conducted by telephone and lasted approximately 30 to 45 minutes. Data were analyzed using a qualitative descriptive approach. ResultsParticipants reported that their hospitals placed restrictions on the number and mobility of support persons allowed to stay with the mother in the unit and prohibited all other visitation. Some challenges of these policies included reduced opportunities for hands-on learning and an increased number of patients opting for early discharge. Perceived benefits for nursing practice as well as patient outcomes included improved frequency and effectiveness of nurse-family communication, increased father involvement, and greater opportunities for maternal rest, breastfeeding, skin-to-skin care and family bonding.ConclusionsStudy findings suggests that some limitations on postpartum hospital visitation may achieve important, family-centered goals. Protected time for family-bonding, maternal rest, breastfeeding, father involvement and individualized education are critical to quality FCC. Research must examine which visitation policies maximize these benefits while preserving patient access to family and social support.

THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF ON SOLDIERS WELL-BEING AND FAMILY BONDING DURING MILITARY DEPLOYMENT

Military deployments are events and stressors that begin when the soldiers are deployed and end when they return home and reintegrate back into their families and communities. Religious belief accepts the basic social-value system's moral legitimacy, which serves as a crucial component of strong family bonds. Family bonding can be defined as a feeling of closeness and caring toward one's parents, which is manifested in the family through ostensible supervision, communication, involvement, and cooperative activities. This study was conducted using 384 usable data gathered from soldiers who served in various ships of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Analyzing the validity and reliability of the instrument and hence testing the research hypotheses, used SmartPLS version 3.2.8 to construct structural equation modeling. The results of path model analysis revealed two important findings: firstly, the soldier well-being (family supports', medium of communication, and personal financial) significantly correlated with religious belief; secondly, the religious belief complementary mediated the relationship between soldier well-being and family bonding. Statistically, this finding suggests that properly managing soldiers' religious beliefs act as an essential mediator between well-being aspects such as family support, medium of communication, personal finance, and family bonding. This study contributes to understanding how soldier well-being factors can strengthen family bonding among soldiers by soldier’s religious belief as a mediator in this relationship. These findings prove that the importance of a soldier’s religious belief is instilled into every soldier. Discussion, ramifications, and a conclusion are also included.

Somali society's concept of stewardship: A study from Islamic perspective

This research’s topic revolves around a sensitive and strange issue that usually causes imbalance in family bonding and undermining stewardship in Somali society, which is the issue of leaving maintenance of the family to the women due to lack of supporter and carer for them. Therefore, it makes the highest population of the women in that society engage in different kind of jobs, which gives them the power of controlling homes and the society. The researcher adopts the inductive research methodology to gather pieces of evidence on the custodian of stewardship and how to control the family from the word of Allah and the sayings of the prophet Muhammad, as well as books and articles written by Somali scholars and researchers and United Nation report regarding the women guardianship in Somali society. The researcher also adopts analytical method to analyse the texts gathered from the texts related to the topic, and followed by interview, which is used to collect data related to the topic from nine respondents; four among them are elites, another four are laymen, and the president of (Somali Scholars Association), then analyse the interview and derive the effects of misunderstanding the stewardship on Somali community. In conclusion, the research finds that the civil war is one of the factors contributed to strengthening women stewardship in the Somali community, and that the Somali men misunderstood the true meaning of guardianship due to lack of deep understanding of it. The researcher also observed that addiction of men to the “khat weed” is another factor contributes to the men unseriousness in the Somali community and results to family separation in the community, hence, it leads Somali women to go out for work and get more power over the men, which causes emotional and educational deprive for Somali children, and consequently leads to the behavioral deviation in them. It is also found through the research that lack of state’s security and protection for women, absence of a tangible family regulation, loss of moral supports from religious scholars.

Exploring Deeper Causes Linking Adolescents’ Mental Disorder to Mobile Phone Usage Problems: A Grounded Theory Approach (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Evidence from a variety of studies links mobile phone usage (MPU) with the increase in mental health problems, with the situation being particularly prevalent in China and exacerbated by the COVID-19 quarantine. OBJECTIVE To reveal underlying connections between MPU and mental disorders of adolescents and develop a theory to help parents and counseling psychologists better understand and intervene in future cases. METHODS 37 teenagers having both mental health and MPU problems, along with their parents were included for individual interviews. These interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using qualitative methods of grounded theory (GT). RESULTS Grades-ranking-only judgment is one of the main factors causing problems such as defective family bonding and peer influences, pushing teenagers with mental disorders to seek comfort in the virtual world through their cellphones. CONCLUSIONS This theory is not only inspiring for psychological counseling and therapy on adolescents with mental problems, but it is also beneficial for school educators and parents to better understand the adolescents. Findings of the study are also particularly noteworthy during the current period when parents whose works are substantially affected by the pandemic should try to build a relaxing and cozy atmosphere at home to avoid possible conflict outbreaks.

SOCIAL VARIABLES AFFECTING FUTURE ANXIETY IN PATIENTS WITH RENAL FAILURE : ANTHROPOLOGY RESEARCH AT THE DIALYSIS SCREENING CENTER IN BAGHDAD

Anthropology is concerned with the study of diseases to which a person is exposed and their psychological and social effects on his immediate and future life. Chronic and dangerous diseases threatening human life have become a problem in various societies, both developed and backward. Perhaps the scientific progress in the medical and health fields that most peoples and societies have enjoyed has become a double-edged sword as it has become a path for the spread of chronic organic diseases and psychological diseases that pose a clear threat to human life. And among the most important of these chronic diseases, kidney failure disease, which is considered one of the serious diseases that accompanies a person for a long period of his life, which affects the patient's physical and psychological condition, since this disease has negative dimensions on the psychological structure of the human being, as it intersects with many organic diseases And the dangerous psychological, that patients with chronic renal failure associated with and restricted to treatment and dialysis, generates in the patients “organic” physiological problems and various psychological problems, as this disease affects the family bonding of the patients' families. Inferiority and lack of respect and self-esteem, and consequently psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression, impotence and loneliness have been proven. Studies show that patients with kidney failure suffer from anxiety to a degree that does not allow them to fulfill their future life requirements as required, and their hope in life diminishes.

Communication Across Maternal Social Networks During England’s First National Lockdown and Its Association With Postnatal Depressive Symptoms

Postnatal/postpartum depression (PND/PPD) had a pre-COVID-19 estimated prevalence ranging up to 23% in Europe, 33% in Australia, and 64% in America, and is detrimental to both mothers and their infants. Low social support is a key risk factor for developing PND. From an evolutionary perspective this is perhaps unsurprising, as humans evolved as cooperative childrearers, inherently reliant on social support to raise children. The coronavirus pandemic has created a situation in which support from social networks beyond the nuclear family is likely to be even more important to new mothers, as it poses risks and stresses for mothers to contend with; whilst at the same time, social distancing measures designed to limit transmission create unprecedented alterations to their access to such support. Using data from 162 mothers living in London with infants aged ≤6 months, we explore how communication with members of a mother’s social network related to her experience of postnatal depressive symptoms during the first “lockdown” in England. Levels of depressive symptoms, as assessed via the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, were high, with 47.5% of the participants meeting a ≥11 cut-off for PND. Quasi-Poisson regression modelling found that the number of network members seen in-person, and remote communication with a higher proportion of those not seen, was negatively associated with depressive symptoms; however, contact with a higher proportion of relatives was positively associated with symptoms, suggesting kin risked seeing mothers in need. Thematic qualitative analysis of open text responses found that mothers experienced a burden of constant mothering, inadequacy of virtual contact, and sadness and worries about lost social opportunities, while support from partners facilitated family bonding. While Western childrearing norms focus on intensive parenting, and fathers are key caregivers, our results highlight that it still “takes a village” to raise children in high-income populations and mothers are struggling in its absence.

Communication across maternal social networks during the UK’s national lockdown and its association with postnatal depressive symptoms

Postnatal/postpartum depression (PND/PPD) had a pre-covid estimated prevalence ranging up to 23% in Europe, 33% in Australia, and 64% in America, and is detrimental to both mothers and their infants. Low social support is a key risk factor for developing PND. From an evolutionary perspective this is perhaps unsurprising, as humans evolved as cooperative childrearers, inherently reliant on social support to raise children. The coronavirus pandemic has created a situation in which support from social networks beyond the nuclear family is likely to be even more important to new mothers, as it poses novel risks and stresses for mothers to contend with; whilst at the same time, social distancing measures designed to limit transmission create unprecedented alterations to their access to such support. Using data from 162 mothers living in London with infants aged ≤6 months, we explore how communication with members of a mother’s social network relates to her experience of postnatal depressive symptoms during “lockdown” in England. Levels of depressive symptoms, as assessed via the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, were high, with 47.5% meeting a >=11 cut-off for PND. Quasi-poisson regression modelling finds that the number of network members seen in-person, and remote communication with a higher proportion of those not seen, was negatively associated with depressive symptoms; however, contact with a higher proportion of relatives positively associated with symptoms suggesting kin risked seeing mothers in need. Thematic qualitative analysis of open text responses finds that mothers experienced a burden of constant mothering, inadequacy of virtual contact, and grief over lost social opportunities; while support from partners facilitated family bonding. While Western childrearing norms focus on intensive parenting, and fathers are key allomothers, our results highlight that it still “takes a village” to raise children in high-income populations and mothers are struggling in their absence.