Psychological impact of covid19 on out-of-hospital emergency services

This article focuses on how the COVID-19 pandemic affects Emergency Medical Assistant’s (EMA) mental health. In addition, it aims to define which psychological consequences it entails and if they have received postgraduate training on how to face the pandemic by the Health System or organizations that depend on it. This is a qualitative exploratory study of a phenomenological type where a semi- structured ad-hoc interview has been used for data collection, answered by EMA. The results show the psychological impact that COVID-19 has had on the work and personal life of these workers, the lack of psychological resources and the multiple psychological consequences developed as a result of the neglect of their mental health. EMA reaffirm the psychological challenge the COVID-19 pandemic means, creating situation of greater stress and anxiety than implied internal impediments for the job, family and friends. Therefore, they express the necessity for psychological support, being able to develop a diversity of psychological help resources that allow EMA to release the pychological oppression caused by the added stressors of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Epilepsy and pregnancy: identifying risks

Pregnancy is a time of physical, physiological and psychological challenge. For women with epilepsy, as well as its potential for joy and fulfilment, pregnancy may bring additional risks and difficulties. Clinicians must anticipate and prevent these complications, ensuring that pregnancy, delivery and motherhood proceed without obstetric or medical complications, using available evidence to balance individual risks of undertreatment and overtreatment. Here we review epilepsy management in pregnancy, identifying some of the known effects of epilepsy and its treatment on gestation, fetal malformation, delivery, and neurocognitive and behavioural development. We outline strategies to reduce obstetric and fetal complications in women with epilepsy, while recognising the sometimes competing need to maintain or improve seizure control. We reinforce the importance of identifying those at highest risk, who may require additional measures or safeguards.

Vision Impairment: A Psychological Challenge of the Elderly

Ageing is part of life. With age, the body physically changes and there are psychological challenges are faced by visual impairment. The elderly find it difficult to cope with the changes. The study is substantiated by concepts, theories, and empirical findings that have accumulated under the umbrella of age-related psycho-ophthalmology. The focus is on adaptation theories in visually impaired older adults. One can understand the ageing through everyday competence, cognitive functioning, social functioning, and subjective well-being-related outcomes, depression, and adaptation processes. Thereafter, major insights related to the current state-of-the art psychosocial interventions with visually impaired older adults are reviewed. There is a need of public health community should become more aware of and address the psychosocial needs of visually impaired older adults.

Associations between Personality Traits, Intolerance of Uncertainty, Coping Strategies, and Stress in Italian Frontline and Non-Frontline HCWs during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Multi-Group Path-Analysis

The COVID-19 pandemic represented a very difficult physical and psychological challenge for the general population and even more for healthcare workers (HCWs). The main aim of the present study is to test whether there were significant differences between frontline and non-frontline Italian HCWs concerning (a) personality traits, intolerance of uncertainty, coping strategies and perceived stress, and (b) the models of their associations. A total of 682 Italian HCWs completed a self-report questionnaire: 280 employed in COVID-19 wards and 402 in other wards. The analysis of variance omnibus test revealed significant differences between the two groups only for perceived stress, which was higher among the frontline. The multi-group path analysis revealed significant differences in the structure of the associations between the two groups of HCWs, specifically concerning the relations between: personality traits and intolerance of uncertainty; intolerance of uncertainty and coping strategies. Regarding the relation between coping strategies and stress no difference was identified between the two groups. In both of them, emotionally focused coping was negatively related with perceived stress, whereas dysfunctional coping was positively related with stress. These results could be useful in planning actions aiming to reduce stress and improve the effectiveness of HCWs’ interventions. Training programs aimed to provide HCWs with a skillset to tackle uncertain and stressful circumstances could represent an appropriate support to develop a preventive approach during outbreaks.

Missing Person Identification System

In the world, countless people are missing every day, including children, adolescents, psychological challenge, elderly people with Alzheimer’s, etc. they remain without a trace. These charges are missing and are being reviewed at the police station. Ngu using webcam technology compare the individual and the database available again to find these people. This program is designed to locate missing people. If missing The person is found in the Web video stream and sends the location of the lost person to the police station. After a missing person is found in a Web Video stream, send location Email to the police station. So our system can play a very key role in matters of security and authenticity. Here the manager does all the management roles in this program. The controller can add active police officers, remove active police officers and watch police using. The system gets the results and produces the output accordingly.

Assessing Instructional Cognitive Load in the Context of Students' Psychological Challenge and Threat Orientations: A Multi-Level Latent Profile Analysis of Students and Classrooms

To better understand instructional cognitive load, it is important to operationalize and assess it in novel ways that can reveal how different students perceive and experience this load as either challenging or threatening. The present study administered a recently developed instruction assessment tool—the Load Reduction Instruction Scale-Short (LRIS-S)—to N = 2,071 students in 188 high school science classrooms. Multilevel latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to identify student and classroom profiles based on students' reports of instructional cognitive load (load reduction instruction, LRI; using the LRIS-S) and their accompanying psychological challenge orientations (self-efficacy and growth goals), and psychological threat orientations (anxiety and failure avoidance goals). In phase 1 of analyses (investigating students; Level 1), we identified 5 instructional-psychological student profiles that represented different presentations of instructional load, challenge orientation, and threat orientation, ranging from the most maladaptive profile (the Instructionally-Overburdened & Psychologically-Resigned profile) to the most adaptive profile (Instructionally-Optimized & Psychologically-Self-Assured profile). The derived profiles revealed that similar levels of perceived instructional load can be accompanied by different levels of perceived challenge and threat. For example, we identified two profiles that were both instructionally-supported but who varied in their accompanying psychological orientations. Findings also identified profiles where students were dually motivated by both challenge and threat. In turn, these profiles (and their component scores) were validated through their significant associations with persistence, disengagement, and achievement. In phase 2 of analyses (investigating students and classrooms; Levels 1 and 2), we identified 3 instructional-psychological classroom profiles that varied in instructional cognitive load, challenge orientations, and threat orientations: Striving classrooms, Thriving classrooms, and Struggling classrooms. These three classroom profiles (and their component scores) were also validated through their significant associations with classroom-average persistence, disengagement, and achievement—with Struggling classrooms reflecting the most maladaptive outcomes and Thriving classrooms reflecting the most adaptive outcomes. Taken together, findings show that considering instructional cognitive load (and new approaches to empirically assessing it) in the context of students' accompanying psychological orientations can reveal unique insights about students' learning experiences and about important differences between classrooms in terms of the instructional load that is present.

Let the Algorithm Speak: How to Use Neural Networks for Automatic Item Generation in Psychological Scale Development

Measurement is at the heart of scientific research. As many—perhaps most—psychological constructs cannot be directly observed, there is a steady demand for sound self-report scales to assess such latent constructs. However, scale development is a tedious process that requires researchers to produce good items in large quantities. In the current tutorial, we introduce, explain, and apply the Psychometric Item Generator (PIG), an open-source, free-to-use, self-sufficient natural language processing algorithm that produces large-scale, human-like, customised text output within a few mouse clicks. The PIG is based on the GPT-2, a powerful generative language model, and runs on Google Colaboratory—an interactive virtual notebook environment that executes code on state-of-the-art virtual machines at no cost. We demonstrate that based on an input of three sentences, the PIG produces 65 items that pass initial face validity checks within a single iteration of code and a runtime of less than one minute. The PIG does not require any prior coding skills or access to computational resources and can be easily tailored to any desired context by simply switching out short linguistic prompts in a single line of code. Additionally, the PIG can also be used as a bottom-up tool to expand and diversify the conceptual understanding of a construct or derive hypotheses about its relationships to other, existing constructs. In short, we present an effective, novel machine learning solution to an old psychological challenge. As such, the PIG will not only not require you to learn a new language—but speak yours.

Coronavirus Trauma and African Americans’ Mental Health: Seizing Opportunities for Transformational Change

The COVID-19 pandemic is a natural disaster of historic proportions with widespread and profound psychological sequelae. African Americans fall ill and die more than whites from COVID and more survivors and loved ones face psychological risk. African Americans also experience greater personal, social, and financial stress even when not personally touched by COVID illness, and they are again vulnerable as COVID diminishes African American community’s capacity for mutual support. Enactment of the American Rescue Act of 2021 can moderate if not eliminate African Americans’ greater adversity and greater psychological challenge; other provisions can move the mental health treatment system beyond its previous failure to reach African Americans as it constructively responds to the crisis that COVID presents. From outreach through trusted community actors and institutions for meeting African Americans’ needs of varying intensity and duration, and by providing a spectrum of evidence supported interventions—culturally adapted as needed—newfound success can mark a turning point toward new approaches and lasting success.

Intergroup and intragroup dimensions of COVID-19: A social identity perspective on social fragmentation and unity

COVID-19 is a challenge faced by individuals (personal vulnerability and behavior), requiring coordinated policy from national government. However, another critical layer—intergroup relations—frames many decisions about how resources and support should be allocated. Based on theories of self and social identity uncertainty, subjective group dynamics, leadership, and social cohesion, we argue that this intergroup layer has important implications for people’s perceptions of their own and others’ situation, political management of the pandemic, how people are influenced, and how they resolve identity uncertainty. In the face of the pandemic, initial national or global unity is prone to intergroup fractures and competition through which leaders can exploit uncertainties to gain short-term credibility, power, or influence for their own groups, feeding polarization and extremism. Thus, the social and psychological challenge is how to sustain the superordinate objective of surviving and recovering from the pandemic through mutual cross-group effort.

When social exclusion is mandated: COVID-19, social distancing, gender and psychological needs

In light of evidence from ostracism research, social distancing to limit the spread of COVID-19 poses a unique psychological challenge. In a German (N=546) and a US (N=199) sample, we examined how different degrees of social distancing impact outcomes related to social exclusion, measuring self-related needs: self-esteem, belonging, control, and meaning. Across both samples social distancing was associated with decreased need fulfillment. German participants reported higher need fulfillment compared to American participants. In comparison to previous studies, self-related needs associated with social distancing were less impacted than under experimental manipulations of social exclusion, however more so than under the baseline condition of inclusion. Working while social distancing was associated with greater need fulfillment, as was identifying as male. Women reported lower need fulfillment in both samples and this difference was mediated by need to belong. Results are discussed in terms of understanding self-related needs in different contexts of exclusion.