Addressing the mental health needs of children/adolescents, families, and ourselves during our unprecedented COVID-19 times

Education for Health Care Providers on Implementation of Trauma-Informed Care in Practice

BACKGROUND

Traumatic experiences can adversely affect a child's health. These effects often continue into adulthood, especially when trauma is not addressed. Although the evidence shows benefits with addressing trauma earlier in life, trauma-informed care of children is underused in primary care. Health care providers (nurses, nurse practitioners, physicians) report gaps in knowledge of trauma-informed care and in their comfort level addressing trauma in primary care.

METHOD

This project investigated the use of continuing education sessions to increase health care providers' knowledge and readiness to implement trauma-informed care into their practice.

RESULTS

The education sessions improved health care providers' knowledge and comfort with trauma-informed care.

CONCLUSION

This intervention improved providers' readiness to implement trauma-informed care into their primary care practice. [J Contin Educ Nurs. 2024;55(5):246-252.].

Emotional Correlates of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Individuals With and Without Diabetes

OBJECTIVE

To compare the mental health experiences associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in adults with and without diabetes.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

Between 29 May 2020 and 30 June 2020, 2,176 U.S. adults completed an online survey including demographics, COVID-19 experiences, depression (eight-item Patient Health Questionnaire) and anxiety (seven-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder) symptoms, perceived stress (10-item Perceived Stress Scale), resilience (Brief Resilience Scale), and diabetes-related distress (in participants with diabetes) (17-item Diabetes Distress Scale).

RESULTS

Mean age was 49.6 years (SD 16.9); participants were primarily women (80.0%) and White (88.3%), with an annual household income of ≥$60,000 (57.6%). One hundred reported a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes (4.6%), 304 type 2 diabetes (13.9%), and 145 prediabetes (6.6%). Nearly one-third (29.7%) indicated decreases in income attributable to the pandemic. Participants with type 1 diabetes had higher levels of diabetes distress than participants with type 2 diabetes (P < 0.05), with moderate severity in both groups. Participants with type 2 diabetes had significantly more comorbidities and COVID-19 risk factors than all other groups (all P < 0.01). After controlling for covariates, participants with type 2 diabetes reported significantly more depressive symptoms than those without diabetes (P < 0.05) and lower levels of resilience (P < 0.05). Subgroup analyses by sex and age indicated that women and younger adults, particularly those age 18-34 years, reported significantly more depression and anxiety symptoms, stress, and diabetes-related distress and lower levels of resilience than men and adults age ≥51 years.

CONCLUSIONS

In this naturalistic observational study, participants with type 2 diabetes reported more depression, lower resilience, and significantly more COVID-19 risk factors and medical comorbidities than participants without diabetes. Overall, our participants demonstrated worse depression and anxiety symptoms during compared with before the pandemic.

Knowledge and preventive actions toward COVID-19, vaccination intent, and health literacy among educators in Japan: An online survey

Countermeasures against the spread of COVID-19 have become an urgent issue in educational settings, where many group activities are necessary. Educators are key to preventing the spread of COVID-19 in educational settings. Infection prevention behavior requires comprehensive and complex measures such as self-restraint. disinfection care, hand washing, wearing masks and recommendation and implementation of vaccination. Improvement in the knowledge, skills, and preventive actions of educators vis-à-vis COVID-19 could allow for the continued provision of educational services while ensuring safety in educational settings. Therefore, the objective of this study was to explore the knowledge and preventive actions of educators regarding COVID-19 and vaccination awareness to provide appropriate support for educators. The study used data collected from 1,000 Japanese educators in January 2021 when the third wave of viral infections spread. Online surveys and multivariate linear regression analysis were used to determine age and whether respondents were being cared for by a doctor. We investigated the effects of factors on educators’ willingness to be vaccinated and changes in their behavior. This study found that factors such as age, gender, whether a respondent was under a physician’s care, and health literacy, affected the willingness of educators to receive vaccinations and engage in preventive actions. The study also suggests that the reliability of national government public relations efforts is lower than the reliability of local government public relations and that of information from family physicians, pharmacies, and mass media. It is therefore necessary to reexamine how information is disseminated by the national government and to increase the degree of trust in that information among the public. The findings of the study also revealed the importance of improving the provision of appropriate information and health literacy for the behavior of educators, not only during the initial outbreak, but also during the subsequent period of pandemic life.