Surgeons’ non-transparent facemasks challenge the physician–patient relationship in the orthopedic outpatient clinic of a tertiary university hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic: a prospective cohort study of 285 patients

Background and purpose — Facemasks play a role in preventing the respiratory spread of SARS-CoV-2, but their impact on the physician–patient relationship in the orthopedic outpatient clinic is unclear. We investigated whether the type of surgeons’ facemask impacts patients’ perception of the physician–patient relationship, influences their understanding of what the surgeon said, or affects their perceived empathy. Patients and methods — All patients with an appointment in the orthopedic outpatient clinic of a tertiary university hospital during the 2-week study period were included. During consultations, all surgeons wore a non-transparent (first study week) or transparent facemask (second study week). Results of 285 of 407 eligible patients were available for analysis. The doctor–patient relationship was evaluated using the standardized Patient Reactions Assessment (PRA) and a 10-point Likert-scale questionnaire ranging from 0 (strongly disagree) to 10 (strongly agree). Results — A non-transparent facemask led to more restrictions in the physician–patient communication and a worse understanding of what the surgeon said. Patients’ understanding improved with a transparent facemask with greatest improvements reported by patients aged 65 years and older (non-transparent: 6 [IQR 5–10] vs. transparent: 10 [IQR 9–10], p < 0.001) and by patients with a self-reported hearing impairment (non-transparent: 7 [IQR 3–7] vs. transparent: 9 [IQR 9–10], p < 0.001). The median PRA score was higher when surgeons wore a transparent facemask (p= 0.003). Interpretation — Surgeons’ non-transparent facemasks pose a new communication barrier that can negatively affect the physician–patient relationship. While emotional factors like affectivity and empathy seem to be less affected overall, the physician–patient communication and patients’ understanding of what the surgeon said seem to be negatively affected.

Evaluation of a braille-based colour code proposal for people with visual impairment

People with visual impairment (PVI) are a group that have some sort of visual loss, including individuals with low vision and blindness. As colour is one of the most important elements in transmitting visual information, its lack of access can be configured as an information and communication barrier, which impacts daily routines and social inclusion. The present study evaluates the suitability of a braille-based colour code proposal for PVI called Universal Colour Code (UCC). Based on user experience methods, exploratory interviews, free association of words, effectiveness tests, and assessment of code were conducted. The results show that UCC has potential for PVI who master braille.

Public Communication Practices and Beliefs Among Conservation Scientists and Practitioners in a Midwest U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Program.

Public communication is increasingly recognized as a key component in successful natural resource management within government agencies responsible for conservation. However, communication practices and beliefs among government conservation scientists and practitioners are not well studied or understood. Herein, we present the results of a communication survey disseminated to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) employees working for the agency’s Ecological Services program, a program charged with endangered species recovery. We asked respondents about public communication practices and beliefs, and factors that may motivate or discourage participation in public communication activities. Study respondents reported the lowest levels of participation in media-related, one-way communication activities, including writing educational materials and answering media inquiries, and the engaging in one-on-one communication with stakeholders most frequently. While our results suggest respondents engage in frequent two-way communication with stakeholders, our results also suggest they mostly communicate with stakeholders remotely, and especially by email, rather than in-person. Furthermore, only 36% reported they go out of their way to visit people in communities. On the other hand, a majority agreed they learn new things about species and landscapes (80%) from conversations with stakeholders and often use this knowledge to solve conservation problems (89%). With respect to factors that encouraging and discouraging participation, 93% of respondents indicated a desire to produce better conservation outcomes motivates them to communicate with stakeholders and the public. Many agreed that a lack of time was an obstacle to participating in public communication (68%), but an even larger majority (86%) indicated public unfamiliarity with USFWS presented a barrier to public communication. Similarly, majority of employees also agreed public and stakeholder unfamiliarity with themselves and their work, also presented a communication barrier (62%). Our findings suggest agencies responsible for conservation may want to assess whether agency and its employees adequately invest in communication activities that foster public familiarity with the agency and its employees.

Safety Workaround of Registered Nurses in Malaysian Public Hospitals: A Pilot Study

Safety workarounds stay a crucial concern for employers, significantly within the healthcare industry wherever hospital nurses' safety has deteriorated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This pilot study used descriptive and correlational analyses to explore and analyse the reliability of the constructs of communication barriers, work engagement, and burnout on safety workarounds, and also their relationship. This study was conducted with 30 registered nurses in public hospitals in the State of Perak, Malaysia. The results showed that all scales to measure burnout, work engagement, communication barriers, and safety workaround had moderate to excellent feasibility and had sufficient test-retest reliability. The results also indicate that all two independent factors, namely burnout and communication barrier, were shown to be negatively and significantly correlated with safety workaround, whereas work engagement was found to be positively and significantly correlated with safety workaround. This study is anticipated to fill a spot within the literature as a result of there hasn't been a lot of analysis on nurses' safety workarounds within the Malaysian setting. These results may contribute to a stronger understanding of the constructs of communication barriers, work engagement, and burnout and how to deal with safety workaround of registered nurses in Malaysian public hospitals.

Pharmacy Student Challenges and Strategies towards Initial COVID-19 Curriculum Changes

Due to COVID-19, tertiary institutions were forced to deliver knowledge virtually, which proposed challenges for both institutions and students. In this study, we aimed to characterize pharmacy students’ challenges and strategies during COVID-19 curriculum changes, therefore developing a comprehensive understanding of students’ learning, wellbeing, and resilience in the ever-changing situation. Data were collected from student written reflections across four year levels at one school of pharmacy from March–May 2020. In addition, data were collected from written responses of second-year pharmacy students responding to prompted questions. The data were qualitatively analyzed inductively by five coders using NVivo 12. For each piece of data, two coders independently coded the data, calculated the inter-rater agreement, and resolved discrepancies. The most coded challenges were ‘negative emotional response’ and ‘communication barrier during virtual learning’. The most coded strategies were ‘using new technology’ and ‘time management’. This study allows researchers and education institutions to gain an overview of pharmacy students’ experiences during COVID-19, therefore helping universities to provide students with necessary support and techniques on how to self-cope with COVID-19 as well as stressful events in the future.

The Life of a Foreign Traveler in Russia According to Johann Arnold Brand’s Dictionary-Phrasebook, 1673

The article provides for an overview of foreigners’ encounter with the Russian language in the 16th — early 18th centuries; it analyzes, for this purpose, the German-Russian dictionary-phrasebook from the diary “Journey through Brandenburg, Prussia, Courland, Livonia, Pskov, Veliky Novgorod, Tver and Moscow” by Johann Arnold Brand. The phrasebook “Some Muscovite words and expressions that may be useful to travelers”, compiled by Brand on the way from Pskov to Moscow, contains the names of body parts, clothing, household accessories, dishes and drinks, food products, interior items, transport, utensils, writing tools in Russian transliteration with the translation into German. It also includes ready-made speech structures for communicating with fellow travelers, coachmen, owners and staff of the inns, for disposing of servants and property. The analysis of the phrasebook made it possible to recreate the everyday realities of the life of the Brandenburg Embassy on the road, and situations of lexical exchange. The authors provide a commented version of the literal reading of words and expressions in Russian. The independent study of the local language in Russia by foreign travelers was the most effective way to overcome the communication barrier and improve living conditions when traveling to the borderlands. The source under study may be of interest to both historians of the frontier and specialists in material culture and linguistics.

Introducing R as a smart version of calculators enables beginners to explore it on their own

Rapid technological advances in the past decades have enabled molecular biologists to generate large-scale and complex data with affordable resource investments, or obtain such data from public repositories. Yet, many graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and senior researchers in the biosciences find themselves ill-equipped to analyze large-scale data. Global surveys have revealed that active researchers prefer short training workshops to fill their skill gaps. In this article, we focus on the challenge of delivering a short data analysis workshop to absolute beginners in computer programming. We propose that introducing R or other programming languages for data analysis as smart versions of calculators can help lower the communication barrier with absolute beginners. We describe this comparison with a few analogies and hope that other instructors will find them useful. We utilized these in our four-hour long training workshops involving participatory live coding, which we delivered in person and via videoconferencing. Anecdotal evidence suggests that our exposition made R programming seem easy and enabled beginners to explore it on their own.

Comparison of Charge Nurses’ and Registered Nurses’ Perceptions of Management Functions in the Implementation of Supervision in Hospital

Introduction: Different perceptions in the supervision process, part of the management functions of nurse manager, are at risk and have a bad impact, such as conflicts that will result in lack of motivation, communication barrier, and decreased performance and quality of services in the hospital. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to compare the perception of the head of the room with the implementing nurse about the role and function of management in the implementation of supervision. Methods: This quantitative study was conducted on a population of 515 nurses, and 81 nurses were used as a sample (71 nurses and 7 room heads) which were selected by accidental sampling. The research tool is in the form of a questionnaire containing management functions in supervision. Data were analyzed using independent t-test. Results: The results of this research did not show a significant difference between charge nurses’ and registered nurses’ perceptions of the management function in supervision, as indicated by the p-value> 0.025 (95% CI), p-value = 0.990 (planning), p-value = 0.957 (organizing), p-value=0.962 (staffing), p-value=0.508 (directing), Conclusion: With actuating aspect that obtained p-value = 0.977 and controlling aspect that obtained p-value = 0.790, the conclusion of this research is there was no significant difference between charge nurses’ and registered nurses’ perceptions of management functions in supervision.

Strategies of relief organizations for improvement of disaster risk communication process in Iran

Background: The frequency and severity of disaster occurrence and emergency situation, and the importance of disaster risk communication of relief organizations to increase the readiness of societies in the case of disaster is increasing around the world. This study aimed to identify relief organizations' strategies to improve disaster risk communication in Iran. Methods: This qualitative study was conducted with the participation of 25 managers, relief workers, and people who had experiences in response to one of the disasters. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed using conventional content analysis.Results: The analysis of the data of this study led to the identification of 3 categories and 9 sub-categories regarding strategies of relief organizations to improve risk communication. These categories are 1) management of information and training communication (facilitation of training processes, diverse training strategies, and integrated informing), 2) management of communication barriers (trust building, managing people's demands and efforts to respect affected people), and 3) Inter-organizational communication management (coordination to meet people's demands, improve communication coordination and strengthen communication platforms)Conclusion: Relief organizations use different strategies to improve disaster risk communication, and communication barrier management is vital for improving organizations' communication with people. Developing risk communication improvement strategies can help planners and managers design and implement effective risk management programs.