Information and communication technology among early and late middle-aged adults in urban China: Daily use and anticipated support in old age

How much do we care about teacher job insecurity during the pandemic? A bibliometric review

In this study, a descriptive bibliometric analysis of the scientific production in the Web of Science on job insecurity perceived by teachers in pandemic situations was carried out. The result shows the growing interest in the topic with an upward trend with an annual growth of 41.52%. Forty-seven papers from 41 journals with 2,182 cited references were considered, with 149 researchers from 30 countries publishing at least one article. The country with the most publications was the United States, followed by Germany and Spain. The United States was the country with the most collaborations. A total of 95 institutions published papers, and the universities with the most registrations were Miami University and the University of the Basque Country, although York University and the University of the Basque Country had a higher overall citation coefficient (102 and 40, respectively). Of the 41 journals that have published on the topic, Frontiers in Education and the British Journal of Educational Psychology stood out in terms of their article numbers. However, this last one was superior in terms of the overall number of citations per year, followed by Frontiers of Psychology.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of workers and the associated social-economic aspects: A narrative review

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic has struck nations worldwide, pushing worldwide health and socio-economic systems to extreme limits. Upon exposure to an exceeding number of patients and supply shortages, the resilience of healthcare resources has been broadly challenged.

OBJECTIVE

We will firstly discuss the mental health turmoil during the COVID-19 pandemic as the primary focus of this study and delve into the mental health repercussions among the workforce. Also, we debate the risk factors, particularly highlighting the impact of social behaviors and media exposure. We examine the pandemic's impact on occupational health services. Secondly, we thoroughly discuss the effect of socio-economic and race disparities in the COVID-19 contraction and the related psychologic sequelae. Economic outcomes are also highlighted, particularly alterations in poverty rates and occupational sectors.

METHODS

Peer-reviewed reports were extracted through Embase, PubMed, and Google Scholar until June 2022.

RESULTS

A constellation of untoward spillover effects of the pandemic, including dramatic changes in public and workplace environments, enduring curfew, and low wages, have put socio-economic aspects of daily life under exuberant strain. Indeed, occupational and public health stakeholders presume a coinciding social crisis to occur, provided the pandemic's implications on socioeconomics and psychological wellbeing are not addressed well with evidence-based approaches and peer services.

CONCLUSION

Evaluating the socio-economic and mental health impact is imperative to cope with the pandemic. Also, we should assess the predisposing and protecting factors in a broad array of life aspects associated with COVID-19.

COVID-19 pandemic-related anxiety, stress, and depression among teachers: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

As millions of teachers have been forced to rely upon remote teaching due to the closure of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is particularly important to understand the extent to which teacher's psychological wellbeing has been affected by this global health crisis.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis was twofold: 1) ascertain the prevalence of stress, anxiety, depression among teachers during the COVID-19 outbreak; 2) identify the associated factors of these psychological wellbeing domains of the teachers.

METHODS

Academic Search Premier, Eric, PsycInfo, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched for articles published from December 2019 and July 2021, using search terms including "COVID-19" "anxiety" "depression" "stress", and "teachers".

RESULTS

This study included 54 studies synthesising data from 256,896 teachers across 22 countries. The meta-analysis showed higher prevalence of stress (62.6%, 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 46.1-76.6), compared to anxiety (36.3%, 95% CI: 28.5-44.9) and depression (59.9%, 95% CI: 43.4-74.4) among teachers. Teachers' experiences of these psychological issues were associated with various socio-demographic and institutional factors, including gender, nature of online teaching, job satisfaction, teaching experience, and the volume of workload. Additionally, several protective factors, such as regular exercises and provision of technical support for online teaching, reduced teachers' negative psychological experiences.

CONCLUSION

There is a need for authorities to formulate educational policies to improve teachers' wellbeing at the time of global crisis. Special attention should be paid to assist female teachers in overcoming physical and mental stressors.

Factors Affecting the Adoption of Mobile Government by Older People

Increases in the population's average age require government services to offer high-efficiency, low-cost services aimed at the elderly. An extended technology acceptance model (ETAM) embedded in a contextualized perspective is proposed to analyze elderly users' mobile government behavioral intentions. In this study, a questionnaire survey was conducted on 800 participants aged 60 and over to identify crucial influencing factors. One dependent variable, three independent variables, four intervening variables, and four control variables were used for the questionnaire design. The proposed model was tested based on structural equation modeling (SEM) under eight constructs. The empirical results showed that elderly users' attitudes, perceived external support, orientation level, and perceived ease-of-use have a significant positive impact on elderly users' acceptance of mobile government, while perceived risk has a relatively negative impact. Among these factors, both users' attitudes and perceived external support exhibit the strongest effect on behavioral intention.

Factors Associated With Informational Support in Transitional Care for Older Adults With Chronic Diseases: A Cross-Sectional Study

To evaluate the current situation and associated factors of informational support for older adults with chronic diseases in transitional care. Study was conducted in five hospitals of five different cities in Jiangsu Province, China. A random cluster sample of 800 older adults with chronic diseases responded to the informational support questionnaire of transitional care survey. Descriptive analysis, t-tests, variance analysis, and stepwise multiple linear regression were used to analyze data. The STROBE statement for observational studies was applied. Total score of ISQTC for older adults with chronic diseases was (44.05 ± 17.21). Marital status, educational level, past occupation, close friends, medical insurance, complications, and exercise habits were significantly correlated with informational support. The level of informational support in transitional care for older adults with chronic diseases was low. Clinical staff should periodically and primarily assess their informational support, help find information resources for those who have low initial informational support, and identify which information they preferred to carry out accurate transitional care.

Prevalence of Anxiety, Depression, and Stress among Teachers during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Rapid Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis

BACKGROUND

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers have been accumulating adverse psychological symptoms due to the closure of educational centers and the need to adapt to different teaching modalities.

METHODS

Medline and PubMed were searched for studies on the prevalence of depression, anxiety, stress, and burn-out in teachers, published from 1 December 2019 to 15 June 2021.

RESULTS

In total, eight studies were included in this study. The results show that teachers report levels of anxiety (17%), depression (19%), and stress (30%). In Asia, there has been more anxiety compared to other continents. Overall, anxiety has been higher among teachers in schools compared to universities. However, stress levels have been higher among teachers in universities compared to schools. Statistically, there were no significant differences regarding gender and age in any of the symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS

The results suggest that teachers at different educational levels are experiencing adverse psychological symptomatology during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that anxiety levels vary between different countries. However, more international studies are needed to fully understand the impact of the pandemic on teachers' mental health.

Reopening of Schools in the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Quality of Life of Teachers While Coping with This New Challenge in the North of Spain

Background: This study aims to analyze how teachers perceived their quality of life when coping with the reopening of schools after their closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This study was carried out with a total sample of 1633 teachers from the Department of Education of the Basque Autonomous Community (Northern Spain), all of the professionals working in different educational centers, from preschool education to university studies, with the average age of 42.02 years (SD = 10.40). Main Outcome Measures: For this purpose, the Spanish version of the WHOQOL-BREF was used. Results: The highest values of perceived quality of life were found in the dimension of psychological health, followed by the dimension of physical health, the social relations dimension, and finally, the environmental dimensions. The results also revealed significant differences depending on gender, age, having a chronic illness, or living with someone who has a chronic illness, employment security, and educational sector. Conclusion: The study shows that it is important to attend to teachers’ health and quality of life, especially older teachers, those with a chronic illness, caregivers, those with job insecurity, and those who teach in preschool education.

The Psychological State of Teachers During the COVID-19 Crisis: The Challenge of Returning to Face-to-Face Teaching

Schools in Spain were closed in March 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19. In September 2020 most schools and universities in Spain reopened and teachers felt great uncertainty due to this unprecedented situation. Teachers have accumulated psychological symptoms since the beginning of the pandemic. During the lockdown they had to introduce online teaching and in view of the reopening of schools they have shown great concern for the new unprecedented teaching situation. The present study aims to measure the symptomatology shown by teaching staff in the Basque Autonomous Community at the time when schools were reopened. To do this, we recruited a sample of 1,633 teachers who were given an online questionnaire which, in addition to collecting socio-demographic data, measured stress, anxiety and depression using the DASS-21scale. The results revealed that a high percentage of teachers showed anxiety, depression and stress symptoms. Furthermore, variables such as gender, age, job stability, the level of education at which they teach and parental status also influence this symptomatology. We argue for the need to safeguard the mental health of teachers in order to improve both the quality of teaching and the mental health of students.

Using Neighborhood Rough Set Theory to Address the Smart Elderly Care in Multi-Level Attributes

The neighborhood rough set theory was adopted for attributes reduction and the weight distribution of condition attributes based on the concept of importance level. Smart elderly care coverage rate is low in China. A decisive role in the adoption of smart elderly care is still a problem that needs to be addressed. This study contributes to the adoption of smart elderly care was selected as the decision attribute. The remaining attributes are used as conditional attributes and the multi-level symmetric attribute set for assessing acceptance of smart elderly care. Prior studies are not included smart elderly care adoption attributes in multi-levels; hence, this problem needs to be addressed. The results of this study indicate that the condition attribute of gender has the greatest influence on the decision attribute. The condition attribute of living expenses for smart elderly care has the second largest impact on decision attribute. Children’s support for the elderly decency of the novel elderly care system and the acceptance of non-traditional elderly care methods belong to the primary condition attribute of traditional concept. The result indicates traditional concepts have a certain impact on the adoption of smart elderly care and a condition attribute of residence also has a slight influence on the symmetric decision attribute. The sensitivity analysis shows the insights for uncertainties and provides as a basis for the analysis of the attributes in the smart elderly care service adoption.