Articles: pandemics.
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Frontline health-care workers experienced moral injury long before COVID-19, but the pandemic highlighted how pervasive and damaging this psychological harm can be. Moral injury occurs when individuals violate or witness violations of deeply held values and beliefs. We argue that a continuum exists between moral distress, moral injury, and burnout. Distinguishing these experiences highlights opportunities for intervention and moral repair, and may thwart progression to burnout.
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Preventive medicine · Nov 2022
Pre-pandemic social isolation as a predictor of the adverse impact of the pandemic on self-rated health: A longitudinal COVID-19 study in Japan.
Many studies have found adverse effects of the coronavirus disease pandemic on health. Irrespective of being infected by the coronavirus, lockdowns and other measures to restrict mobility have worsened an individual's subjective health assessment. Unlike previous studies, this study examined how pre-pandemic social isolation (in the form of no interaction with others and having no social support) affected the impact of the pandemic on self-rated health in Japan. ⋯ The state of emergency raised the probability of reporting poor health by 17.8 (95% confidence interval [CI]:1.9-33.8) percentage points among the participants who had not interacted with others before the pandemic, compared with only 0.7 (95% CI: -3.1-4.5) percentage points among other participants. Similar results were obtained in the absence of social support prior to the pandemic. In conclusion, pre-pandemic social isolation was detrimental to health, suggesting that policy measures are needed to avoid social isolation to increase the resilience of public health to external shocks.
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Southern medical journal · Nov 2022
Participation in a Longitudinal Seminar Series Increases Medical Student Engagement with the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic required a multifaceted response by healthcare professionals. Medical students played only a limited role in the early response, resulting in feelings of disengagement. The authors developed a discussion-based elective course reviewing the COVID-19 response to address this gap in medical student education. ⋯ Preclinical medical student participation in a discussion-based seminar course reviewing the COVID-19 pandemic significantly increased feelings of engagement with and understanding of the response of the medical field to the pandemic.
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The anatomical pathology autopsy serves several purposes, notably as a quality management tool for evaluation of accuracy in clinical diagnosis. Despite its value, for various reasons there has been an international decline in autopsies conducted. In the modern medical era, with all its advances in technology, diagnostic techniques and interventions, there is still a high discrepancy between clinical diagnoses and postmortem findings. ⋯ This study showed that there is still a high discrepancy between clinical diagnoses and postmortem findings, similar to studies conducted globally. The current COVID-19 pandemic may be a driver for revival of the anatomical pathology autopsy, and future studies are recommended to evaluate whether the decline can be reversed.
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Increasingly, climate change policies are emerging across Europe. Policies addressing adaptation (adjusting the effects of climate change on public health) are being implemented after the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to identify issues in climate adaptation implementation for public health and understand the health implications from responses after COVID-19. ⋯ This project has received part-funding from the Enhancing Belmont Research Action to support EU policy making on climate change and health project, which is part of the EU's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement number 101003966). The research was part-funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Environmental Change and Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in partnership with Public Health England, the Met Office, and University College London (grant number PHSEZT6210). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, the Department of Health and Social Care or PHE.