Acceptability of Internet-based interventions for problem gambling: a qualitative study of focus groups with clients and clinicians

Telemedicine as bridge to the offline world for person affected with problematic internet use or internet use disorder and concerned significant others

Introduction

Internet use disorder is a disorder of the digital age and presents a growing problem worldwide. It appears that due to structural and personal barriers, many persons affected (PA) and Concerned Significant Others (CSO) do not reach the health care system so far and thus a chronification of the pathology can proceed.

Methods

A telemedicine counseling service for PA and CSO of PA unwilling to enter treatment with two webcam-based sessions of 60 minutes for each group was created with the aim of reaching out to PA and CSO to provide a low-threshold support and refer the participants to the local health care system. Motivational interviewing for PA and CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training) for CSO were used as methods. Participants answered questions about their Internet use and sociodemographic data and six months after participation, participants were asked via email if they entered the local health care system. CSO answered the questions for themselves and in a third-party rating for PA unwilling to enter treatment.

Results

107 PA (34 years (SD = 13.64), 86% male) and 38 CSO (53 years (SD = 6.11), 28.9% male) participated in the two telemedicine sessions. After participation, 43.9% of the PA and 42.1% of the CSO reached the health care system. When there was consistency between the location of telemedicine consultation and treatment locally, over 90% of participants arrived (PA: 92.3%, CSO: 100%).

Conclusion

The results from this study reveal that telemedicine services could be a promising approach to address PA and CSO and build a bridge to the local health care system. Future studies should verify if these results can be replicated in randomized controlled trials.

Using multi-focus group method as an effective tool for eliciting business system requirements: Verified by a case study

This research aims to explore the multi-focus group method as an effective tool for systematically eliciting business requirements for business information system (BIS) projects. During the COVID-19 crisis, many businesses plan to transform their businesses into digital businesses. Business managers face a critical challenge: they do not know much about detailed system requirements and what they want for digital transformation requirements. Among many approaches used for understanding business requirements, the focus group method has been used to help elicit BIS needs over the past 30 years. However, most focus group studies about research practices mainly focus on a particular disciplinary field, such as social, biomedical, and health research. Limited research reported using the multi-focus group method to elicit business system requirements. There is a need to fill this research gap. A case study is conducted to verify that the multi-focus group method might effectively explore detailed system requirements to cover the Case Study business's needs from transforming the existing systems into a visual warning system. The research outcomes verify that the multi-focus group method might effectively explore the detailed system requirements to cover the business's needs. This research identifies that the multi-focus group method is especially suitable for investigating less well-studied, no previous evidence, or unstudied research topics. As a result, an innovative visual warning system was successfully deployed based on the multi-focus studies for user acceptance testing in the Case Study mine in Feb 2022. The main contribution is that this research verifies the multi-focus group method might be an effective tool for systematically eliciting business requirements. Another contribution is to develop a flowchart for adding to Systems Analysis & Design course in information system education, which may guide BIS students step by step on using the multi-focus group method to explore business system requirements in practice.

Understanding gambling in the United Kingdom: A qualitative study on the experiences of gamblers' families

This study focuses on understanding the experiences of family members of problem gamblers in the United Kingdom and the gambling consequences in their lives. Family members of problem gamblers, even though they suffer from gambling consequences, the impacts of gambling are under-researched. Qualitative research through in-depth interviews was employed. Thematic analysis was used to gain a deeper insight into gambling. Nine female participants were interviewed based on a semi-structured questionnaire. The results of this study indicated that close family members of problem gamblers had suffered not only financial devastation but also harsh psychological and mental health damages. Furthermore, family members suffer from gamblers' abusive and violent behaviors. Addiction was a key factor of gamblers' habit; fear, anxiety, and depression were some of the health issues derived from gambling. Overall, gambling addiction leads to further addiction, crime, and severe, family-relation sufferings. The study results suggest that the London Gambling Commission and regulating authority should change gambling policy, reduce gambling points, and limit gambling slot machines in food markets and community areas. More support is needed for family members affected by gamblers' addictive gambling behaviors.

Health professionals? Perspective towards challenges and opportunities of telehealth service provision: A scoping review

BACKGROUND

Telehealth, or healthcare offered through the internet, computers, and other devices for communication, is rapidly increasing with changing times and technological advancement. For quality and security of such services, it is crucial that professionals are competent in offering such service. Still, lack of professionals' training has been identified as one of the barriers to implementation of telehealth. Thus, to improve such training, it is crucial to identify professionals' knowledge, experience, and perspectives towards challenges and opportunities of using telehealth.

OBJECTIVE

The review's objective was to answer the research question: what is known in the literature about challenges and opportunities of telehealth service provision from the perspective of health professionals?

METHODS

Arksey and O'Malley's five-stage approach for scoping studies was used for the review. Studies were collected across four databases: Scopus, PubMed, ProQuest and EBSCOhost. The data from the 22 included studies were reported by using frequency counts and categorization of health professionals' experiences.

RESULTS

The findings of the review led to three categories: (1) study demographics, (2) challenges for telehealth, and (3) opportunities for telehealth. The most frequently reported challenges were issues related to communications, inadequate technology, or support, and need for training and knowledge to use the technology. The most frequent categories of opportunities related to improved access to services, benefits related to sharing of information sharing and experience and training of using technology.

DISCUSSION

Further research is needed to explore health professionals' experience of training, and to understand the type of support, resources, and training content they need to enhance their competency in telehealth provision.