Evaluation of a breastmilk hand expression toolkit: the M.I.L.K survey study

Background Breastmilk hand expression (BMHE) is recommended to promote lactation, relieve breast engorgement, and collect milk for future infant feedings. Resources to teach this skill are limited and infrequently developed in partnership with the obstetrical population. In collaboration with maternity care experts and individuals with recent breastfeeding experience, we designed a one-page toolkit that describes the process of BMHE and includes step-by-step instructions and images to illustrate the technique. This study aimed to evaluate the readability, clarity of content, layout, and informational value of this BMHE toolkit. Methods Individuals who intended to breastfeed, were currently breastfeeding, or had recently breastfed were electronically surveyed and completed a two-part survey that consisted of radio, multi-select, Likert scale, and open-ended questions. Part one captured sociodemographic factors, obstetrical history, and breastfeeding practices. Part two collected feedback on the BMHE toolkit. Participants were recruited electronically through social media and posters were circulated in antenatal and postnatal care settings in Ottawa, Canada between November 2020 and February 2021. Results Of the 123 participants, 117 (95.1%) had heard of hand expression prior to reviewing the toolkit and 99 (80.5%) had hand expressed before. Among the 48 participants who were no longer exclusively breastfeeding at the time of the survey, 22 (45.8%) had exclusively breastfed their infant for at least six months and 7 (14.6%) had discontinued exclusive breastfeeding within the first month. When asked about the BMHE toolkit, 118 (95.9%) participants said it was informative, 115 (93.5%) said it was easy to understand, and 114 (92.7%) said it was well laid-out. When asked about information seeking behaviours, participants indicated a preference for online resources (58.5%) and video resources (22.0%). Conclusions The BMHE toolkit was well received by participants and the feedback was favourable overall. The survey feedback will be used to create a revised version of the toolkit that has been validated by the obstetrical patient population. Future research should focus on identifying implementation strategies to optimize the use of the toolkit and increase its effectiveness as an educational resource to teach participants correctly BMHE.

the use of the Twitter network in raising awareness of the emerging corona virus (Covid-19) through analyzing the tweets of the UAE Ministry of Health and Community

This study aimed to determine the use of the Twitter network in raising awareness of the emerging corona virus (Covid-19) through analyzing the tweets of the UAE Ministry of Health and Community Protection that were published from 7/1/2020 - 31/7/2020, to reveal the communication role of health institutions in raising awareness of the disease. This study is a descriptive study that uses the analytical approach. It relied on the sample survey method using the content analysis tool. The tweet was considered as a unit of analysis using both social responsibility theory and information seeking. The number of tweets reached 513 tweets. The findings have shown that the Ministry of Health and Prevention in the UAE allocated 62% of its tweets in July to raise awareness of the emerging Corona virus and the majority of these tweets were supported by images and info graphics. Additionally, the tweets focused on all segments of the society. The interest of those in charge of the site appeared through answering all inquiries, The study recommends conducting specialized research in the field of communication networks and their role in health awareness.

Correlates of Older Adults’ E-Health Information-Seeking Behaviors

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> The Internet is an important source for health information and a medium for older adults’ empowerment in health decision-making and self-caring. Therefore, we aimed to identify the potential motivators and probable barriers of e-health information-seeking behaviors (e-HISB) among older Iranian adults. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> A cross-sectional study assessed the usefulness of self-efficacy, perceived encouragement, positive attitude toward e-HISB, perceived usefulness, challenges of being visited by physicians, and perceived barriers in predicting e-HISB in a sample of 320 older adults in Tabriz, Iran. <b><i>Results:</i></b> The self-efficacy for online information seeking, positive attitude toward e-HISB, and perceived usefulness increased the odds of e-HISB by 12.00%, 24.00%, and 15.00%, respectively. In addition, e-health literacy, conflicting information, distrust of online information, and web designs that were not senior-friendly were the major barriers to e-HISB. <b><i>Discussion/Conclusion:</i></b> The theoretical and practical implications of the motivators and barriers of e-HISB can be instrumental in designing and executing programs aimed at improving e-health literacy among older adults especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Student usage of open educational resources and social media at a Sri Lanka Medical School

Background The use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Social Media (SM) for academic information seeking is common among undergraduates nowadays. There is limited data on OER and SM use for education in Sri Lanka. This study was aimed at evaluating the OER and SM use for education among the medical students at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya. Stratified random sampling was used to select students from the first year to the final year. A self-administrated questionnaire was used to collect data. Results The study included 257 responses (response rate: 89.5%), of which 185 (72.0%) were females. The OER and SM use for educational purposes at least once a month among students was 96.1% (95%CI: 93.7–98.5%) and 88.3% (95%CI: 84.4–92.3%) respectively. There was no gender difference in OER and SM use. The main reasons for accessing OER were the availability of information at any time (36.1%) and ease of information access (31.5%). Wiki sites (84.4%) and Facebook (79.8%) were the highest accessed OER and SM platforms. The majority of students were in view that the information on wiki sites (51.4%) and results of general non-specific web searches (56.0%) were reliable. Only 33.9% of students searched information from educational and government-related sources and 18.7% had accessed e-journals. Through SM, 79.0% joined educational groups and 77.0% followed the medical-related sites, pages and people. More than one-third of students (35.8%) could not find academic information from SM due to the information overload and 31.1% mentioned that SM distracted their education. Conclusion The majority of the students used OER and SM for education; however, only a minority accessed reliable information. Students accepted information available in wiki sites and general non-specific web searchers without considering the credibility of sources. The majority of the students did not refer to e-journals. Distractions to academic work and the difficulty to access accurate information were major concerns of using SM. This study highlights the importance of improving information literacy among medical students.

Exploring the nexus of social media influencers and consumer brand engagement

PurposeGrounded in uses and gratification theory (UGT) and observational learning theory (OLT), this study aims to understand the impact of motivational factors on consumer-influencer engagement behaviors (CIEBs). Motivating factors, including entertainment, information seeking, reward and social interaction, are regarded as antecedents of consumers' OLT, as manifested by CIEB dimensions, including consumption, contribution and creation, and subsequently drive consumer engagement with the endorsed brands.Design/methodology/approachA self-administered questionnaire was distributed to Malaysian social media users. A total of 263 responses were collected and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine the impact of motivational factors on CIEBs.FindingsThe results show that the three dimensions of CIEBs can be predicted by different gratifications (information seeking, entertainment, reward and interaction). In addition, two of the CIEB dimensions, consumption and contribution, were found to have a significant positive influence on consumers' engagement with endorsed brands.Practical implicationsThis study provides insights into how social media influencers (SMIs) could lead to CIEBs by creating entertaining and rewarding content that facilitates social interaction between consumers. SMIs and marketers that encourage consumers to browse, comment and share SMI-created posts will enhance consumer engagement with the endorsed brands, as engagement is driven by the consumption and contribution to SMI-created content.Originality/valueSMI marketing is increasing, and many brands are beginning to rely more on SMIs to promote brands. Yet, there is a dearth of studies that have examined how SMIs play a role in affecting consumers' engagement with endorsed brands. This study contributes to the marketing literature by developing and empirically testing the research model. Results suggest that social interaction, reward and entertainment are key motivational factors that drive CIEBs, which, in turn, foster consumer engagement with endorsed brands.

How real is real enough? Participant feedback on a behavioral simulation used for information-seeking behavior research

A challenge of studying information-seeking behavior in open web systems is the unpredictability of those systems. One solution to counteract this issue is employing a simulation to ensure experimental control. However, concerns arise over the realism of such an environment. This paper assesses the realism of a behavioral simulation used to study the evaluation behavior of 175 students from fourth grade through graduate school. We assess realism through the examination of targeted participant feedback about what would have made the simulated environment and tasks more realistic to these participants. Based on this feedback, we reflect on decisions made in designing the simulation and offer recommendations for future studies interested in incorporating behavioral simulation in their research design. We find that a thoughtfully designed simulation can elicit naturalistic behavior when the controlled environment is designed to be realistic in meaningful ways. Because the simulation does not have to perfectly match reality to elicit these behaviors, designing a simulation that is real enough is an effective method to study information-seeking behavior.

Patterns of Saliency and Semantic Features Distinguish Gaze of Expert and Novice Viewers of Surveillance Footage

When viewing the actions of others, we not only see patterns of body movements, but we also "see" the intentions and social relations of people, enabling us to understand the surrounding social environment. Previous research has shown that experienced forensic examiners, Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) operators, convey superior performance in identifying and predicting hostile intentions from surveillance footages than novices. However, it remains largely unknown what visual content CCTV operators actively attend to when viewing surveillance footage, and whether CCTV operators develop different strategies for active information seeking from what novices do. In this study, we conducted computational analysis for the gaze-centered stimuli captured by experienced CCTV operators and novices' eye movements when they viewed the same surveillance footage. These analyses examined how low-level visual features and object-level semantic features contribute to attentive gaze patterns associated with the two groups of participants. Low-level image features were extracted by a visual saliency model, whereas object-level semantic features were extracted by a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN), AlexNet, from gaze-centered regions. We found that visual regions attended by CCTV operators versus by novices can be reliably classified by patterns of saliency features and DCNN features. Additionally, CCTV operators showed greater inter-subject correlation in attending to saliency features and DCNN features than did novices. These results suggest that the looking behavior of CCTV operators differs from novices by actively attending to different patterns of saliency and semantic features in both low-level and high-level visual processing. Expertise in selectively attending to informative features at different levels of visual hierarchy may play an important role in facilitating the efficient detection of social relationships between agents and the prediction of harmful intentions.

A comparison of information behavior studies in United States and India: Number of publications, authorship, journals, theories, research populations, and methods

This study compares attributes (authors, journals, populations, theories, methods) of information seeking behavior studies based in the United States and India, based on a search of published articles from 2011 to 2020 in relevant information science databases. The findings indicate major differences in information behavior research among the two countries. Information behavior research in the United States tends to focus more on health and medicine-related research populations, employ greater use of information behavior theories, and use a variety of quantitative and qualitative research methods (as well as mixed methods). Information behavior research in India tends to focus more on general populations, use less theory, and rely heavily on quantitative research methods—particularly questionnaires (88% of studies). These findings suggest a healthy and intellectually-diverse information behavior research area in the United States and ample room for growth of the research area within India.