How Does the Family Influence the Process of Transition to Adulthood? A Comparative Study of Young People with and without Family Ties in Spain

The transition to adulthood is a process that brings childhood to an end and turns the individual into a young adult. This process is characterised by the acquisition of new roles for young people, roles linked to the development of personal autonomy that culminate in their emotional and functional independence. The aim of this study was to ascertain how young people with family ties and youths without family support perceive and understand their emancipation process. The study also sought to identify the extent to which family provides support during the emancipation process. The research design was qualitative and used the focus group technique for data collection. The total sample consisted of 12 participants (seven males and five females) with an average age of 18. Five of them were minors in the custody of the State, and seven were young adults in a regular family environment. The information collected was analysed using Atlas.ti software. The results highlighted the existence of difficulties and barriers among young people (with and without family ties) related to psychological problems, difficulties in choosing training, finding a job and, in short, emancipation. However, young people with healthy social ties and family stability during their childhood had more support for an effective transition to independent adulthood compared to young people without family ties.

Can social capital play a role in contracting services of family doctors in China? Reflections based on an integrative review

Background The family doctors’ contract service problem is not about government management alone, but an interaction of a complex social environment. Consequently, the effect of contracted services of family doctors not only depends on policy incentives but also needs to win the participation, acknowledgement, and confidence of community residents. The purpose of this integrative review is to examine whether there is any significant evidence that social capital in the form of social networking groups and other forms of social groups have any positive impact on the acceptance and the effectiveness of family doctors' contractual services. Method Research on qualitative, quantitative and hybrid methods published in peer-reviewed journals on the social capital role in the process of contract service of family doctors were eligible for inclusion. In view of the increasing attention paid to the contract service effect of family doctors during this period, a 10-year time scale was selected to ensure full coverage of relevant literature in the same period. In total, 809 articles were determined in the database retrieval results which were downloaded and transferred to the Mendeley reference application software. Results Twelve articles met the inclusion criteria for this integrative review and the quality of the included studies were assessed using the published criteria for the critical appraisal of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Majority of the articles assessed reported that there was evidence of a positive link between social support, especially a sense of belonging and the presence of regular family doctors. The influencing factors of patients' contract behavior of studies conducted in China were social interaction of social capital, acceptance of the first contact in the community, year of investigation, and exposure to the public. Conclusion The study affirms previous studies that suggest that social resources have the propensity to improve relationship between patients and clients and between doctors and peers for the benefit of the patients and the stability of the overall healthcare system. Through the integration of various social resources family doctor systems accelerate the development of community construction. These social capital (social network groups) can guide residents to use family doctor services to maintain health. Social capital can also help residents have a regular and reliable family doctor.

“It's Been Negative for Us Just All the Way Across the Board”: Focus Group Study Exploring Parent Perceptions of Child Screen Time During the COVID-19 Pandemic (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Child screen time (ST) has soared during the COVID-19 pandemic as lockdowns and restrictions have forced changes to regular family routines. It is important to investigate how families are navigating ST. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to explore families’ experiences of ST during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS Virtual focus group sessions were conducted between December 2020 and February 2021 in English and Spanish. Transcripts were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. RESULTS In total, 48 parents (predominantly Hispanic) residing in California participated in 1 of 14 focus group sessions. Children were attending school remotely at the time of the study. A total of 6 themes and 1 subtheme were identified: (1) total ST has increased; (2) children are too attached to screens; (3) ST has advantages and disadvantages but parents perceive ST as mostly negative; (4) parents and children have limited options; (5) ST restrictions (subtheme: children react negatively when ST is restricted); and (6) parents are concerned that children are not getting enough exercise. CONCLUSIONS This study provides a cross-sectional insight into how family life has changed with regard to ST during the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents expressed concerns about total ST, the addictive nature of it, and lack of physical activity. It is important that future studies examine the long-term effects of heavy ST and preemptively introduce ways to redirect children’s ST habits as the country attempts to establish a new normal.

140 Lessons From the Front Line: Communication is Key

Introduction As junior doctors, we very rarely receive formal teaching on communication after medical school, with telephone encounters and difficult conversations over technology being a vital yet missing part of our education. The COVID-19 pandemic has required us to adapt how we communicate with patients’ families due to hospital visiting restrictions. In an era where tragically deterioration and death have been much more commonplace, we looked to identify areas where junior doctors felt their communication skills could be improved, and implemented a teaching programme to deliver this. Methods Pre-teaching questionnaires were distributed to a range of grades of junior doctors working in University Hospital of Llandough, Cardiff. The questionnaires were distributed at the beginning of June 2020, after 3 months of working in pandemic conditions. A teaching session on telephone and video communication skills was delivered by a local palliative care consultant. Post-teaching, a repeat questionnaire was undertaken to assess response and identify key learning points. Results Pre-teaching, 100% of the 22 respondents had had to participate in difficult conversations over the phone, 82% had had no formal phone based communication skills training and 81.82% felt some form of formal teaching would be helpful. Post-teaching, 12 junior doctors provided feedback with an average 37% increase in confidence to undertake difficult conversations. Key learning points from the session highlighted the importance of preparation, regularly updating the family to build trust and rapport, and integrating family updates via tele-communication into daily ward life. Conclusions Education around telephone communication skills is critical to enable us to adapt our skills in accordance with the demands of the pandemic, to continue to support relatives and to engage with technology with confidence. Increased preparation is required to navigate difficult conversations via technology, and successful communication requires clinicians to take responsibility for initiating regular family updates.

The role of family meal frequency in common mental disorders in children and adolescents over eight months of follow-up

Objective This study evaluated the influence of family meal frequency on the occurrence of common mental disorders (CMD) in children and adolescents over eight months of follow-up. Design Data from this longitudinal study were derived from the PAAPAS—Parents, Students, Community Health Agents, and Teachers for Healthy Eating—community trial. CMD were evaluated using the General Health Questionnaire. Frequency of family meals (breakfast and dinner) was categorized as “breakfast and dinner regularly with the family”, “at least breakfast or dinner regularly with the family”, and “does not have any meal regularly with the family.” The effect of family meal frequency on CMD was analyzed using generalized estimation equations with log-binomial models for repeated measures. Setting This study was conducted in public schools (N = 18) of Duque de Caxias, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2016. Participants Children (aged 9–11 years) and adolescents (aged 12–17 years) from the fifth and sixth grades (N = 2,743). Results These findings suggested that regular family meals were a protective factor for mental health. The adjusted relative risk of CMD was 0.75 (95% confidence interval = 0.69–0.83) for those who had two family meals regularly and 0.87 (95% confidence interval = 0.77–0.97) for those who had only one regular family meal, compared to students who had no regular family meals. Conclusions Potential strategies that educate and encourage families about the mental health benefits of eating regular meals together must be explored and implemented.

On the Possibility of Classical Client Blind Quantum Computing

Classical client remote state preparation (CC − RSP) is a primitive where a fully classical party (client) can instruct the preparation of a sequence of random quantum states on some distant party (server) in a way that the description is known to the client but remains hidden from the server. This primitive has many applications, most prominently, it makes blind quantum computing possible for classical clients. In this work, we give a protocol for classical client remote state preparation, that requires minimal resources. The protocol is proven secure against honest-but-curious servers and any malicious third party in a game-based security framework. We provide an instantiation of a trapdoor (approximately) 2-regular family of functions whose security is based on the hardness of the Learning-With-Errors problem, including a first analysis of the set of usable parameters. We also run an experimentation on IBM’s quantum cloud using a toy function. This is the first proof-of-principle experiment of classical client remote state preparation.

Can Social Capital Play a Role in Contracting Services of Family Doctors in China? Reflections Based on an Integrative Review.

Background: The family doctors’ contract service problem is not about government management alone, but an interaction of a complex social environment. Consequently, the effect of contracted services of family doctors not only depends on policy incentives but also needs to win the participation, acknowledgement, and confidence of community residents. The purpose of this integrative review is to examine whether there is any significant evidence that social capital in the form of social networking groups and other forms of social groups have any positive impact on the acceptance and the effectiveness of family doctors' contractual services.Method: Research on qualitative, quantitative and hybrid methods published in peer-reviewed journals on the social capital role in the process of contract service of family doctors were eligible for inclusion. In view of the increasing attention paid to the contract service effect of family doctors during this period, a 10-year time scale was selected to ensure full coverage of relevant literature in the same period. In total, 809 articles were determined in the database retrieval results which were downloaded and transferred to the Mendeley reference application software.Results: Twelve articles met the inclusion criteria for this integrative review and the quality of the included studies were assessed using the published criteria for the critical appraisal of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Majority of the articles assessed reported that there was evidence of a positive link between social support, especially a sense of belonging and the presence of regular family doctors. The influencing factors of patients' contract behavior of studies conducted in China were social interaction of social capital, acceptance of the first contact in the community, year of investigation, and exposure to the public.Conclusion: The study affirms previous studies that suggest that social resources have the propensity to improve relationship between patients and clients and between doctors and peers for the benefit of the patients and the stability of the overall healthcare system. Through the integration of various social resources family doctor systems accelerate the development of community construction. These social capital (social network groups) can guide residents to use family doctor services to maintain health. Social capital can also help residents have a regular and reliable family doctor.

«La Basilica di S. Miniato al Monte sta a noi se si vuole». Il ritorno dei monaci olivetani nel 1924

The paper retraces the negotiations undertaken by the Olivetan monks at the beginning of the 20th century for their return to the ancient abbey of San Miniato al Monte, which they had been forced to abandon in 1552 for the construction of the ramparts to defend the city. Given its location, other religious orders wanted to settle there, such as the Vallombrosans of Santa Trinita and the Cassinesi of the Florentine Abbey, but the Olivetans claimed their rights. So on 11th July 1924 the visiting abbot Benedetto Benedetti signed the deed of delivery to his regular family. The official entrance, disclosed by the town press, took place on Sunday 26 October 1924, and the resumption of the monastic life the following year, under the guidance of Don Gaetano Romagnoli, the first abbot of the restored Olivetan community.

Visitation Access to U.S. Nursing Homes: An Analysis of Facility Locations, Ratings, and Disparities

Research findings suggest that family visits to nursing home residents are important for countering depression, increasing residents’ well-being and quality of life (Miller, 2019; Durkin et al., 2014), maintaining physical function (Shankar et al., 2017), and improving general health (Parmenter et al., 2012). Presence by family can directly impact a resident’s care quality, since family members may take a role in monitoring their older relative’s status (Miller, 2019). Unfortunately, regular family visits to nursing homes may be difficult, or impossible, due to challenges that include distance, travel time, lack of transportation, and cost (Fields et al., 2019) (Miller, 2019). These same challenges may translate to socio-economic barriers for families, eliminating long-term-care as an option for older relatives (Ferraro et al., 2017), (Angel and Berlinger, 2018). This paper considers the issue of nursing home visitation access and examines related disparities through spatial and demographic analysis of 15,000+ US facilities monitored by the Centers for Medicare the Medicaid Services. Mathematical models are used to analyze facility and population data, using access measures adapted from the geography discipline (Lou and Wang, 2003; Paez et al., 2019). Analysis explores whether higher rated nursing homes are more likely to be closer to affluent populations, and whether socioeconomic status is a significant factor in overall access. Analysis reveals patterns of access disparity with respect to nursing home ratings and geographies. For example, proximity to higher rated facilities increases monotonically with median household income. Specific policy recommendations are discussed.

Formative Evaluation of Open Goals: A UK Community-Based Multi-Sport Family Programme

Community parks provide opportunities for physical activity (PA) and facilitate social interactions. This formative evaluation assesses the implementation of ‘Open Goals’ (OG), a novel multi-sport programme aiming to increase family PA and community cohesion, delivered weekly by Liverpool Football Club’s charitable foundation to local parks in Liverpool, North West England. Three Open Goals parks were chosen for the evaluation settings. Formative evaluation measures included: System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC) observations (n = 10), direct session observations (n = 8), semi-structured interviews with Open Goals coaching staff (n = 3), and informal feedback from families (n = 5) about their experiences of Open Goals. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were applied to quantitative and qualitative data, respectively. Within the three evaluation parks, Open Goals reached 107 participants from May–July 2019, through 423 session attendances. Fidelity of the programme was high (M = 69% of session content delivered as intended). Overall park use when OG was offered compared to when it was not offered was not statistically significant (p = 0.051), however, target area use was significantly increased (p = 0.001). Overall physical activity levels in parks were significantly (p = 0.002) higher when Open Goals was being offered, compared to when it was not. Coaches reported that engagement in OG positively affected family co-participation and children’s behavioural development. Contextual issues included environmental and social barriers to programme engagement, including the co-participation element of the programme and criticism of the marketing of OG. It is evident that community-based multi-sport PA programmes endorsed by professional football clubs are well positioned to connect with local communities in deprived areas and to encourage PA and community engagement. This study suggests that such programmes may have the ability to improve park usage in specific areas, along with improving physical activity levels among families, although further research is required. Effective marketing strategies are needed for promotional purposes. Upskilling of coaches in the encouragement of family co-participation may support regular family engagement in PA in local parks.