Linking family planning market census data with consumer experiences in three countries: the Consumer’s Market for Family Planning study protocol and data

Background: The Consumer’s Market for Family Planning (CM4FP) project was designed to address limitations of existing family planning (FP) data sources that prevent a full understanding of the total FP market. CM4FP data provide a picture of the complete supply environment and how consumers experience it. Study objectives were to 1) test a ring-fenced census approach consisting of an outlet census in a defined geographical area and a household survey in a smaller inner ring, to comprehensively map the total FP market in a local geography; 2) explore FP supply market dynamism through longitudinal data collection from contraceptive outlets; and 3) test a methodology for directly linking household and outlet data to measure the relationship between contraceptive demand and supply. Methods: Data were collected from study sites in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda from 2019 to 2020. Longitudinal outlet census data and repeated cross-sectional household survey data from women ages 18-49 were collected at three quarterly time points. Outlets were located in an outer ring geography to encompass locations likely visited by women sampled from a smaller inner ring. Data from women who received a contraceptive method in the past 12 months were linked to data for the outlet from which they received the method. Results: Datasets include product audits for 22,380 individual FP products, collected from a total of 1,836 outlets across 12 study sites. The datasets also contain data from 11,536 female respondents, of whom 1,975 were successfully matched to the outlet where they most recently obtained their method. Conclusions: CM4FP data are available at www.cm4fp.org. This unique dataset enables in-depth exploration of the family planning supply market in addition to interactions between the market and consumer perspectives and behaviors within each study site. The data can also be used to explore novel methodologies to inform future study designs.

Does ethical leadership and psychological capital promote knowledge creation? An empirical study of research organizations

Purpose This study aims to empirically examine the relationship of ethical leadership and psychological capital with knowledge creation. It also investigates the effect of psychological capital as a mediator in the relationship between ethical leadership and knowledge creation. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on quantitative research methodology. The data was gathered using a survey questionnaire from 286 members of public-sector research organizations (PSROs) in India. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used for hypotheses testing. Findings The findings of this study show that ethical leadership and psychological capital have a positive influence on knowledge creation. Further, psychological capital mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and knowledge creation. Research limitations/implications This study is a quantitative cross-sectional study. However, future researchers may use qualitative research methodology and longitudinal data collection to supplement this study. Practical implications This study provides new understanding into the creation of knowledge by emphasizing on the critical role played by ethical leadership and psychological capital and, thus, makes significant theoretical contribution. It emphasizes that managers should not only be ethical but also use interventions to strengthen psychological capital of employees to strengthen knowledge creation. Originality/value To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the underlying mechanism of psychological capital in explaining the links of ethical leadership with knowledge creation.

Longitudinal Psychological Family Studies in Austria: A Scoping Review

Objective: To summarize psychological longitudinal research (including population, method, and design characteristics) on family-related outcomes in Austria using a scoping review approach.Background: Evidence-based family policy and practice rely on country-specific research and evidence syntheses to aid in decision making. Longitudinal psychological research on family outcomes provides crucial information about families in a changing society, but an evidence synthesis for Austria is currently lacking.Method: Adhering to PRISMA guidelines, we searched five scientific databases (PsycInfo, PSYNDEX, Pubmed, Scopus, Web of Science) and conducted manual searches to identify additional grey literature. Ten sources (range sample sizes: 22 to 5,000) reporting on six data collection efforts between 1991 and 2015 were identified. Results were summarized narratively.Results: The majority of the samples consisted of heterosexual nuclear families, while research on more diverse family types is needed. Methods were primarily quantitative and conventional in design, but noteworthy exceptions exist. Comprehensive longitudinal data collection efforts across child development are lacking for the new millennium.Conclusion: State-of-the-art research implementing a triangulation of methods, designs, and perspectives that incorporates diverse family types using an intersectional approach is needed to draw accurate conclusions about the changing family landscape in Austria.

Connecting Theory to Methods in Longitudinal Research

Advances in methods for longitudinal data collection and analysis have prompted a surge of research on psychological processes. However, decisions about how to time assessments are often not explicitly tethered to theories about psychological processes but are instead justified on methodological (e.g., power) or practical (e.g., feasibility) grounds. In many cases, methodological decisions are not explicitly justified at all. The disconnect between theories about processes and the timing of assessments in longitudinal research has contributed to misspecified models, interpretive errors, mixed findings, and nonspecific conclusions. In this article, we argue that higher demands should be placed on researchers to connect theories to methods in longitudinal research. We review instances of this disconnect and offer potential solutions as they pertain to four general questions for longitudinal researchers: how time should be scaled, how many assessments are needed, how frequently assessments should occur, and when assessments should happen.

Assessing the Impact of Outdoor Activities on Mental Wellbe-ing; Focusing on the Walking Path in Urban Area

Background: Provided that COVID-19 pandemic has led to mental wellbeing disorders for city dwellers, and given that there is a significant association between outdoor activities and mental health, this paper investigated how the frequency of walking during the pandemic contributes to the immediate and subsequent ‘mood’. Methods: A longitudinal data collection method was adopted to verify the ‘mood’ of the participants before and after walking. The survey was conducted with 100 participants in a walking path in Shiraz, Iran, on Jan 2021. The quantitative analysis methods were performed in SPSS to examine the mental wellbeing outcomes of walking in the outdoor walking path when considering the psychological impacts of the pandemic and the quantity. Results: The result affirms the positive contribution of walking in the improvement of mental-wellbeing-mood during the pandemic; though, such a mood boost is in a direct relationship with the quantity of the activity within a week. Moreover, other factors can play a significant role, including the ‘mood before walking’, and the age of the participants. Conclusion: It is likely that encouraging people to consider walking as their routine activity can lead to several positive consequences on mental wellbeing since walking as a basic outdoor activity during the pandemic can contribute on the mood.

The consequences of a year of the COVID-19 pandemic for the mental health of young adult twins in England and Wales

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all our lives, not only through the infection itself, but also through the measures taken to control the virus’s spread (e.g., lockdown). Here we investigated how the COVID-19 pandemic and unprecedented lockdown affected the mental health of young adults in England and Wales. We compared the mental health symptoms of up to 4,000 twins in their mid-twenties in 2018 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (T1) to those in a four-wave longitudinal data collection during the pandemic in April, July, and October 2020, and in March 2021 (T2-T5). The average changes in mental health were small-to-medium and mainly occurred from 2018 (T1) to March 2020 (T2, one month following the start of lockdown; average Cohen d=0.14). Despite the expectation of catastrophic effects on the pandemic on mental health of our young adults, we did not observe trends in worsening mental health during the pandemic (T3-T5). Young people with pre-existing mental health problems were adversely affected at the beginning of the pandemic, but their increased problems largely subsided as the pandemic persisted. Twin analyses indicated that the aetiology of individual differences did not change during the lockdown. The average heritability of mental health symptoms was 33% across 5 waves of assessment, and the average genetic correlation between T1 and T2-T5 was .95, indicating that genetic effects before the pandemic (T1) are substantially correlated with genetic effects up to a year later (T2-T5). We conclude that on average the mental health of young adults in England and Wales has been remarkably resilient to the effects of the pandemic and associated lockdown.

Perinatal depression screening using smartphone technology: Exploring uptake, engagement and future directions for the MGH Perinatal Depression Scale (MGHPDS)

Women may experience new-onset or worsening depressive disorders during pregnancy and the postpartum. If untreated, there may be detrimental consequences to the health and wellbeing of the woman and to her baby. There is a need for improved tools and approaches that can be easily and broadly implemented to effectively detect depression during the perinatal period. Early identification of depression during pregnancy is an important first step towards connecting women to treatment and preventing continued depression into the postpartum or beyond. This report provides preliminary findings from a pilot study of a digital screening app for perinatal depression expiring potential for app reach, engagement, and user demographics and mental health symptoms. With mainly passive recruitment efforts, we collected cross-sectional mental health data on over 700 women during the perinatal period, including women across over 30 countries. We report on mean depression scores among women during pregnancy and the postpartum as well as on constructs that are commonly comorbid with depression, including anxiety, sleep dysregulation, and perceived stress. Over half of the women during pregnancy and over 70% of women in the postpartum had a depression score indicative of clinical depression. Future research directions for this work and potential for public health impact are discussed, including longitudinal data collection and analyses of symptomology over time and embedding evidence-based digital therapeutics into the app as a means to increase access to mental health services.

Big news stories and longitudinal data collection: A prominent child sexual abuse case negatively affects parents’ attitudes toward male caregivers

Consumption of news media can influence attitudes toward specific groups, but the influence of news media on longitudinal data collection has not yet been researched. We present a method to index media attention on a specific topic, as well as a case study on a big child sexual abuse (CSA) story and its effect on parents’ attitudes toward male childcare professionals in a longitudinal study with fathers and mothers of 207 Dutch families. Questionnaire data on attitudes toward gender-differentiated parenting were collected in four annual waves between 2010 and 2014. NexisUni® Academic database was used to index articles on CSA to chart patterns of media attention before and during that time span. There was an immediate increase in media attention, the amount of articles on CSA doubled, as well as a prolonged increase in attention which culminated during the second wave of the study. In the first wave, 97 of the families participated before the CSA case became known, and 110 participated afterward. Parents who participated after the first news about the case came out reported a more negative attitude toward hiring a male babysitter than those who participated before it. This effect was stronger for mothers. The negative effect on attitude endured during the subsequent waves for all fathers and for those mothers who participated before the news broke. Findings indicate that big news stories influence attitudes that lasts over time and can therefore influence longitudinal data. Further analysis suggests that the influence of news stories is gendered, as mothers showed a recovery in their attitudes over time while fathers did not. We recommend further research on the effect of news on attitude and behavioral measures in longitudinal research.

Use of research electronic data capture (REDCap) in a COVID-19 randomized controlled trial: a practical example

Background Randomized controlled trials (RCT) are considered the ideal design for evaluating the efficacy of interventions. However, conducting a successful RCT has technological and logistical challenges. Defects in randomization processes (e.g., allocation sequence concealment) and flawed masking could bias an RCT’s findings. Moreover, investigators need to address other logistics common to all study designs, such as study invitations, eligibility screening, consenting procedure, and data confidentiality protocols. Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) is a secure, browser-based web application widely used by researchers for survey data collection. REDCap offers unique features that can be used to conduct rigorous RCTs. Methods In September and November 2020, we conducted a parallel group RCT among Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) undergraduate students to understand if receiving the results of a SARS-CoV-2 antibody test changed the students’ self-reported protective behavior against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In the current report, we discuss how we used REDCap to conduct the different components of this RCT. We further share our REDCap project XML file and instructional videos that investigators can use when designing and conducting their RCTs. Results We reported on the different features that REDCap offers to complete various parts of a large RCT, including sending study invitations and recruitment, eligibility screening, consenting procedures, lab visit appointment and reminders, data collection and confidentiality, randomization, blinding of treatment arm assignment, returning test results, and follow-up surveys. Conclusions REDCap offers powerful tools for longitudinal data collection and conduct of rigorous and successful RCTs. Investigators can make use of this electronic data capturing system to successfully complete their RCTs. Trial registration The RCT was prospectively (before completing data collection) registered at ClinicalTrials.gov; registration number: NCT04620798, date of registration: November 9, 2020.

Black students applying and admitted to medicine in the province of Quebec, Canada: what do we know so far?

To address the underrepresentation of Black students in medical schools in Canada and identify barriers in selection processes, we compare data from the latest Canadian census to that of an exit-survey conducted after a situational judgment test (Casper) among medical school applicants and from questionnaires done after selection interviews in Quebec, Canada. The proportion of Black people aged 15-34 years old in Quebec in 2016 was 5.3% province-wide and 8.2% in the Montreal metropolitan area. The proportion in the applicant pool for 2020 in Quebec was estimated to be 4.5% based on Casper exit-survey data. Comparatively, it is estimated that Black people represented 1.8% of applicants invited to admission interviews and 1.2% of admitted students in Quebec in 2019. Although data from different cohorts and data sources do not allow for direct comparisons, these numbers suggest that Black students applying to medical school are disproportionately rejected at the first step compared to non-Black students. Longitudinal data collection among medical school applicants will be necessary to monitor the situation. Further studies are required to pinpoint the factors contributing to this underrepresentation, to keep improving the equity of our selection processes.