Communication Guidelines Research Articles

Lack of clear national policy guidance on COVID-19 vaccines influences behaviors in pregnant and lactating women in Kenya

ABSTRACT SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy is associated with a greater risk of maternal and newborn morbidity and maternal death. In Kenya, pregnant and lactating women (PLW) were ineligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines until August 2021. How shifts in policy influence vaccine behaviors, such as health worker recommendations and vaccine uptake, is not well documented. We conducted qualitative interviews with PLW, health workers, and policymakers in Kenya to understand how different stakeholders’ perceptions of national policy regarding COVID-19 vaccination in pregnancy shaped vaccine behaviors and decision-making. Policymakers and health workers described pervasive uncertainty and lack of communication about the national policy, cited vaccine safety as their primary concern for administering COVID-19 vaccines to PLW, and expressed that PLW were inadequately prioritized in the COVID-19 vaccine program. PLW perceived the restrictive policy as indicative of a safety risk, resulting in vaccine hesitancy and potentially exacerbated inequities in vaccine access. These findings support the need for the development and dissemination of effective vaccine communication guidelines and the prioritization of PLW in COVID-19 vaccination policies and campaigns. To ensure PLW do not face the same inequities in future epidemics, data on infectious disease burdens and vaccine uptake should be collected systematically among pregnant women, and PLW should be included in future vaccine trials.

Best Practices for Constructed‐Response Scoring

This document describes a set of best practices for developing, implementing, and maintaining the critical process of scoring constructed‐response tasks. These practices address both the use of human raters and automated scoring systems as part of the scoring process and cover the scoring of written, spoken, performance, or multimodal responses. Best Practices for Constructed‐Response Scoring is designed not to act as an independent guide, but rather to be used in conjunction with other ETS publications, including the Guidelines for Constructed‐Response and Other Performance Assessments, ETS Standards for Quality and Fairness, ETS Guidelines for Fair Tests and Communications, and the ETS Guidelines for Fairness.

'It needs experience and courage': Awareness towards end of life communication practices in oncologists: A mixed methods study.

End of life communication (EOLC) is generally regarded as a challenging aspect of the medical profession, with high influences of culture, the physician's experience and awareness. The aim of the current study was to assess the awareness of Austrian oncologists towards EOLC practices in their daily clinical routine and to identify limiting and supporting factors of these conversations. Overall, 45 oncologists participated in the assessment in this cross-sectional, mixed-method design using semi-structured interviews and questionnaire. Themes that occurred during the interviews included the initiation of EOLC, EOLC in practice, strategies for EOLC, limiting and supporting factors and consequences of EOLC. There were several variations in the EOLC approach, that is, the use of time frames, timing, initiation and the amount of details given to the patient. Oncologists agreed that EOLC is important in their daily clinical routine and for their patients. Nevertheless, there seems to be an underlying variation in approaches chosen by Austrian oncologists. This variation might be reduced by asking patients about their information preferences in advance and by routine implementation of communication guidelines, nomograms and prognostic calculators to reduce uncertainty.

Theoretical Guidelines for Social Media Marketing Communication

Social media (user-generated content) create many innovative opportunities for those organisationsthat realise that electronic word of mouth (eWOM) can be powerful in an online environment. eWOMis now considered to provide an organisation’s online marketing communication with a competitiveedge since consumers know and trust their friends’ recommendations regarding products andservices. Social media provide organisations with an opportunity to create consumer experiencesfor consumers by making available social media tools. Organisations are interested in brandonline communities because of their ability also to build brand equity and product differentiationin the long term. Although organisations realise the huge potential of social media for eWOM andestablishing an organisation’s brand, there are no clear theoretical guidelines for social mediamarketing communication. This article proposes theoretical guidelines in terms of which socialmedia marketing communication can be considered. These guidelines are evaluated by means ofa case study of a recent social media marketing communication campaign in South Africa.

Mapping the online language ecology of multilingual COVID-19 public health information in Australia

COVID-19 and recent vaccination roll-out campaigns reveal the globally significant relevance and impact of language policies. Often only very few, dominant official or national languages are utilised for health crisis communication despite existing work and research showing the need for inclusive health communication beyond such policies. Therefore, in response to the ongoing concern for effective multilingual communication policy amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, we explore culturally and linguistically responsive communication on social media in Victoria and the Northern Territory, Australia. Here, we suggest that multimodal information drawing on a broader range of semiotic resources delivered by community members has the potential to reconfigure state-level language policy and reflect regional socio-cultural situations. As such, several recommendations are made for adapting language policies including broader definitions of qualified translators and interpreters and the development of crisis-specific communication guidelines sensitive to the place of creation and its linguistic and socio-cultural demographics. Such inclusive, bottom-up approaches can inform other multilingual contexts and policies catering to highly diverse populations such as many European countries, the United States and South Africa, among others.

Who Said What: A Multi-Country Content Analysis of European Health Organisations' COVID-19 Social Media Communication.

Objectives: As a risk communication tool, social media was mobilised at an unprecedented level during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study examined health authorities’ risk communication on social media in response to the pandemic in 2020. Methods: We analysed 1,633 COVID-19-related posts from 15 social media accounts managed by official health authorities in Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Results: The rate at which the authorities posted about COVID-19 on social media fluctuated throughout 2020. Each account’s posting frequency peaked between March and May 2020, before dropping considerably during the summer. The messages that the organisations focused on also varied throughout the year but covered most risk communication guidelines. Yet, our analysis highlighted themes that were communicated infrequently, such as long COVID or exercising during the pandemic. Conclusion: With more individuals now following health authorities on social media, platforms such as Instagram hold great potential for future risk communication campaigns and strategies.

Building the Culture of Public Health as a Positive Reflection from the COVID-19 Crisis.

The goal of this study was to look at the impact of different components of COVID-19 on the development of a public health culture during the COVID-19 pandemic. Culture is largely acknowledged to have the greatest and most profound influence on many aspects of human and group behavior. Culture is the process of integration that distinguishes members of one group or category of people through others; in other words, culture is the operating system of the communities, cultural nuances among societies cause people to demonstrate different behavioral patterns in the face of events. However, the cultural differences of each community make it impossible to apply these metrics universally. Observing the impact of countries’ cultural traits in the fight against outbreaks is one area where social scientists have not put much attention. As a result, this study demonstrates how cultural shifts affect their fight against outbreaks and public health challenges. The human response to COVID-19 is likely to be influenced by country culture and how (and when) overcome will be determined by it. Cultural ideas and assumptions should be assessed as part of public health interventions. These interventions should indeed be addressed at the societal level to stimulate awareness and participation while also guaranteeing culturally relevant events. Healthcare practitioners should emphasize public health exertions on culturally relevant forms of instruction, prevention, behavior and follow-up for successful pandemic management, effective screening, and diagnosis in infected individuals. Public health professionals must recognize the significance of this and learn to use communication messaging and guidelines, which must be culturally acceptable and context-dependent rather than merely grounded on medical methodologies, as was the case in many countries with COVID-19 management.

The interplay of supports and barriers during the transition to adulthood for youth on the autism spectrum

Purpose Transition to adulthood is a complex process that involves important life domains such as education, work, independent living, community, health, and social relationships. Autistic youth face the transition with greater challenges than their peers, and there continues to have significant gaps in the services as they approach young adulthood. The study was conducted to understand the complex interplay between supports and barriers to participation in the transition process. Method Data was collected through six focus groups with 24 participants (7 parents, 11 practitioners, 6 autistic youth), digitally audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results Four themes were reported: Inadequacy of Services, Ambivalence about Formal Services and Support, Understanding Good Partnership, and Evolving Parental Involvement. While parents and practitioners see the fragmented services and lack of comprehensive support as the most prominent challenge, autistic youth feel ambivalent about the type of services they need. Practitioners address the importance of establishing an appropriate level of engagement with parents in the transition process. Autistic youth expect their parents to set a boundary that affirms their independence. Conclusions Our study highlights the need to elicit input across different stakeholders to make transition services centralized, easily accessible, and individualized. Implications for Rehabilitation It is important to have a systematic road map, early preparation of families and autistic youth about the array of adult transition services, and a centralized hub of information to be disseminated. Disability service agencies should develop and implement plans for enhancing outreach and services to transition youth on the autism spectrum and their families. Practitioners need to identify locally available resources and channels for outreach and make available service more visible by producing transition-related materials with examples of current legislative information, problem solving, and best practices. Practitioners should consider how autistic youth identify their needs and wants may be different than how service providers and parents conceptualize them. It is critical to capitalize appropriate levels of caregivers/family support and engagement by provision of education about policies and guidelines for communication and collaboration.

Disaster Journalism in Print Media: Analysis of the Top 10 Hydrogeomorphological Disaster Events in Portugal, 1865–2015

Disaster communication guidelines emphasize that journalists should be aware of past major disasters and draw lessons from the coverage of those events. The press is an important source for the evolution of historical disaster and risk research paradigms over time. This study explored the top 10 damaging hydrogeomorphological events in Portugal selected from the disaster database, which includes events that caused human damages (fatalities, injured, missing, evacuated, and displaced) reported over a period of 151 years (1865–2015) by the Portuguese newspaper Diário de Notícias (DN). News analysis was guided by the news protocol. The analysis of the news published in DN enabled us to identify textual marks that present interconnections in the journalistic coverage and produce discursive standards for these disasters. The textual marks were associated with the hazard and risk paradigms. The discursive standards of DN did not clearly reflect the ruptures in the hazard paradigms. As a rule, the journalistic reports contributed to the naturalization of disasters and the gap in public understanding of risks, by presenting an approach focused on relief actions—ignoring social issues, vulnerability, and population resilience—reducing the discourse of preparedness for future disasters.

So sorry, now please watch: Identifying image repair strategies, sincerity and forgiveness in YouTubers’ apology videos

Many professional and amateur YouTubers are apologizing for their past and current behaviors, which led to the creation of a new media genre called the YouTube apology video. Despite the overflow of these videos, their impact is still questionable to understand the magnitude of this online apology. Thus, applying image repair theory (IRT), this two-part exploratory study examined the message construction, strategies, sincerity and forgiveness of YouTubers’ apology videos. Study 1 was a content analysis of YouTube apology videos (N = 117), and the findings indicated that YouTubers carefully curated their natural appearance and overemphasized the phrase “I’m sorry” to direct their viewers, emphasizing on the mortification strategy. Study 2 utilized Logan Paul’s infamous apology video to conduct an online survey (N = 194), which identified the relationship between perceived sincerity and forgiveness. Our findings suggest that prior connections with the YouTuber increased viewers’ chance of forgiveness, and perceived sincerity was the predictor of forgiveness. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of future guidelines for crisis communication.

SY04-4 Development of the communication skill

We are developing the Cancer Patient - Clinician Communication guideline based on the MINDS guideline development procedure, and are supported by Japan Psycho-Oncology Society and Japanese Association of Supportive Care in Cancer. However the evidence about communication was limited, we decide recommendation based on both limited evidence and expert opinions. Outcome of communication are assessed from three aspects, the outcome directly affected by communication (i.e. reliance), the health outcome indirectly affected by communication (i.e.

Hotel employees’ occupational stigma narratives: perceived attributes, formation paths and destigmatization mechanisms

Purpose Hotel employees’ occupational stigma is often overlooked. Exploration of hotel employees’ occupational stigma representations, perception pathways and destigmatization provides an empirical basis for positive organizational behavior and psychology in the hotel industry. Therefore, this study aims to better understand the mechanism underlying inherent of occupational stigma. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a five-factor narrative analysis involving stigma narrative interviews with a purposed sampling of hotel employees (n = 18). Based on occupational stigma and resource conservation theories, this study designed a five-factor narrative analysis structure chart as the basis for data analysis. Findings Findings indicate the existence of four quadrants of perceived occupational stigma attribute distribution, two paths of perceived occupational stigma formation and a more systematic occupational destigmatization mechanism path. Research limitations/implications The occupational destigmatization path and countermeasures proposed in this study can resolve talent drain and eliminate stereotyping in the hotel industry, which promote the industry’s rapid recovery and sustainable healthy development, providing the practical management guidelines for public communication via social media, and offer practical significance for existing hotel human resource management in modules such as organizational culture and training. Originality/value This study broadens investigations of occupational stigma in a single, static context and explains the relationship between hotel employees’ stigma perceptions and destigmatization paths. Further, the mechanism of emotional energy distribution on spatial stigma was identified. These results have practical implications for organizational culture, training and employee care in hotel human resource management.

Development, Usability Testing, and Promotion of the English- and Spanish-language RESCUE Stroke Caregiver Websites

ABSTRACT Background Caregivers of stroke survivors need trusted information on stroke prevention, rehabilitation, and self-care. Purpose Develop and evaluate the English and Spanish-language RESCUE stroke caregiver websites and conduct a promotional campaign to enhance their reach. Methods We developed websites by partnering with organizations and using health communication guidelines for consumer-oriented, age-appropriate, and culturally sensitive materials. Healthcare provider focus groups and caregiver interviews were conducted to obtain feedback. Websites were refined and assessed for usability through “think aloud” testing and surveys. We implemented a multi-faceted promotional campaign and measured website visits. Results Providers (N = 32) and caregivers (N = 47) responded positively to the websites, describing them as comprehensive and appropriate. Usability testing indicated the websites were appealing, informative, and organized. Caregivers with minimal computer skills had difficulty navigating the websites. The websites received 218,529 visits over 2 years. Promotional activities corresponded with increases in website visits. Discussion Involving end-users and collaborating with partners enhances the accessibility and relevance of online health resources. Multi-faceted promotional efforts and key stakeholder partnerships are required to enhance and sustain the reach of online caregiving resources. Translation to Health Education Practice: The RESCUE websites are comprehensive public sources of evidence-based materials to support stroke patients and their caregivers.

Understanding trust between pediatric hospitalists and outpatient clinicians during hospital admissions: A multisite qualitative analysis.

During transitions between sites of care, clinicians must build trust with colleagues to make decisions that ensure safe, high-quality care. This study explored factors that could influence trust between outpatient clinicians and pediatric hospitalists when children are referred for hospital admission. We conducted an analysis of 41 semistructured interviews with outpatient clinicians and pediatric hospitalists from May 2020 through October 2021 across three healthcare systems participating in a multisite comparative effectiveness study of pediatric direct and emergency department admissions. Qualitative interviews. A conceptual model for trust between outpatient clinicians and pediatric hospitalists during hospital admission referral. Interviews were professionally transcribed, verified for accuracy, and analyzed using a combination of inductive and deductive. We identified two primary domains: (1) interpersonal trust and (2) trust-by-proxy. Interpersonal trust included five relational factors that influenced collaboration between clinicians: antecedent relationships, confidence in others clinical abilities, understanding others' practice culture, recognition of available resources, and power dynamic. An individual clinicians' assessment of risk and past clinical experiences also influenced trust during clinical decision-making. Trust-by-proxy represented system-level factors that could influence trust, independent of any pre-existing relationships, including communication infrastructure, guidelines and protocols, the organizational culture, and professional courtesy. Interpersonal and system-level factors influence trust between outpatient clinicians and hospitalists during decision-making encounters. System-level factors may serve as a proxy for trust when clinicians do not have pre-existing interpersonal relationships. These factors could be explored as an explicit target of interventions to improve interdisciplinary collaboration and decision-making between hospitalists and primary care clinicians.

Pandemic Health Science Communications

When the authors, in an article 2 years ago, explored early communication lessons from COVID-19, it was thought that the world would likely have gotten past the pandemic by publication date. Now, nearly 2 years later, the virus continues to wreak public fear and seemingly confound policy makers, the health/medical community, and risk communicators about how to address the virus. It is time to take stock again of what has worked and what has made matters worse in communicating about severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2—in other words, what may have gone wrong and what seems to have gone right. In the present article, the authors review existing risk communication guidelines and offer suggestions for additions/revisions in light of the world's COVID-19 experience. Specifically, they discuss how communicators might mitigate the politicization of pandemic messages, the need for balancing effective messaging, potential harms to public well-being, risk/benefit analysis, and the necessity of what the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has called “radical transparency.”

Blacklists do not necessarily make people curious about invasive alien species. A case study with Bayesian structural time series and Wikipedia searches about invasive mammals in Italy

Blacklists of invasive alien species (IAS) are a popular tool for managing and preventing biological invasions. Moreover, blacklists also have the potential to make the general public more curious about biological invasions, usually by benefiting from media coverage and providing accessible examples of IAS. We have tested if the implementation of the first List of IAS of Union concern by the European Union increased visits to Wikipedia pages on invasive alien mammals in Italy. We adopted causal impact analysis to quantify changes in the overall volume of visits to pages about invasive alien mammals that appeared on the list, by using pages about native mammals as a control. Following the publication of the first Union list, there was no increase in the amount of visits to Wikipedia pages on invasive mammals, regardless of their inclusion in the Union list. Rather, visits to Wikipedia were irregular in time, coinciding with media coverage of single, charismatic species. Our results indicate that important policymaking initiatives do not necessarily increase curiosity about biological invasions, even when they are covered by generalist media and are relatively easy to understand. We would therefore emphasise that policymaking initiatives should be coupled with adequate communication campaigns and should adopt communication guidelines for generalist media.

THE COVID-19 VACCINE ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN MESSAGE STRATEGY ON EDUCATING THE ROLE OF VACCINE IN INDONESIA

Advertising is one of the public health communication tools that can be used to promote public health information. Before the Covid-19 vaccination program begin in Indonesia, the Covid-19 Vaccine Advertising Campaign themed ‘Tak Kenal Maka Tak Kebal’ was launched to socialize the vaccination program and to educate the role of vaccine to the Indonesian public. This study aims to understand how the campaign elaborates the vaccine benefit to the human body and to propose guidelines on how to campaign a vaccine by applying the concept of positioning. The study applied the framework of the Elaboration Likelihood Theory Model to analyze which elaboration routes and message strategy applied by the campaign. This study also aims to test if the campaign communicates the benefit of vaccines correctly and clearly. The methodology of this study is the Qualitative Descriptive method. Data gathered from relevant literature reviews and the advertising material was collected from various sources including the official Indonesia Covid-19 Special Task Force website. The method allows this study to elucidate the applied message strategy in the Advertising campaign. Online testing questionnaires were also distributed to provide supporting data in the study. The result of the analysis shows that the campaign applied the central route and ‘Show the Benefit’ message strategy to communicate the vaccine benefit to the human body. The visual image used in the Ad Campaign requires verbal message elaboration to reduce its ambiguity. The analysis also finds that Bahasa Indonesia’s translation of immunity and vaccine benefit message elaboration in the Ad has the potential to be misunderstood and misperceived by the audience. Therefore, communication guidelines to campaign vaccine through Advertising is needed for future vaccine campaigns, particularly in Indonesia. The positioning concept can be applied to provide an initial guideline to campaign vaccine as a product. The study analysis focuses only on the two-dimension static Advertising Campaign material. Further research on richer medium and other forms of campaign methods and techniques can be analyzed and tested to identify the effective strategy to campaign vaccine benefit. Campaigning for a vaccine is not an easy task. It requires meticulous message elaboration to deliver the right message and create the right perception. Applying the concept of positioning in the vaccine campaign can be a way to define the right message and method to promote vaccines and to support vaccination activities in the future.

The Role of Recipient Characteristics in Health Video Communication Outcomes: Scoping Review.

BackgroundThe importance of effective communication during public health emergencies has been highlighted by the World Health Organization, and it has published guidelines for effective communication in such situations. With video being a popular medium, video communication has been a growing area of study over the past decades and is increasingly used across different sectors and disciplines, including health. Health-related video communication gained momentum during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, and video was among the most frequently used modes of communication worldwide. However, although much research has been done regarding different characteristics of video content (the message) and its delivery (the messenger), there is a lack of knowledge about the role played by the characteristics of the recipients for the creation of effective communication.ObjectiveThe aim of this review is to identify how health video communication outcomes are shaped by recipient characteristics, as such characteristics might affect the effectiveness of communication. The main research question of the study is as follows: do the characteristics of the recipients of health videos affect the outcomes of the communication?MethodsA scoping review describing the existing knowledge within the field was conducted. We searched for literature in 3 databases (PubMed, Scopus, and Embase) and defined eligibility criteria based on the relevance to the research question. Recipient characteristics and health video communication outcomes were identified and classified.ResultsOf the 1040 documents initially identified, 128 (12.31%) met the criteria for full-text assessment, and 39 (3.75%) met the inclusion criteria. The included studies reported 56 recipient characteristics and 42 communication outcomes. The reported associations between characteristics and outcomes were identified, and the potential research opportunities were discussed. Contributions were made to theory development by amending the existing framework of the Integrated-Change model, which is an integrated model of motivational and behavioral change.ConclusionsAlthough several recipient characteristics and health video communication outcomes were identified, there is a lack of robust empirical evidence on the association between them. Further research is needed to understand how the preceding characteristics of the recipients might affect the various outcomes of health video communication.

Implicitness, Logical Form and Arguments

In the paper I suggest that a loose notion of logical form can be a useful tool for the understanding or evaluation of everyday language and the explicit and implicit content of communication. Reconciling ordinary language and logic provides formal guidelines for rational communication, giving strength and order to ordinary communication and content to logical schemas. The starting point of the paper is the idea that the bearers of logical form are not natural language sentences, but what we communicate with them, that is, their content in a particular context. On the basis of that idea, I propose that we can ascribe logical proprieties to what is communicated using ordinary language and suggest a continuum between semantic phenomena such as explicatures and pragmatic communicational strategies such as (particularized) conversational implicatures, which challenges the idea that an implicatum is completely separate from what is said. I believe that this continuum can be best explained by the notion of logical form, taken as a propriety of sentences relative to particular interpretations.

Psychological Problem in Geriatric Age Group

The proper definition of geriatrics is not easy to define. It can be said it is the health care / medical care provided to the elderly age group people of the society. Old/elderly is also preferred over the geriatric term but is not that precise, sixty-five years is said to be the age group coming into the geriatric group, but some of the people do not need any medical care until the age of seventy- seventy years. Biological or physiological impairment, as well as socioeconomic circumstances, can affect functional status. Their functional ability determines the elderly's capacity to stay at home. Doctors should reasonably expect to care for an increasing number of elderly people with complex medical and psychosocial issues. As a result of these challenges and issues, difficult ethical dilemmas may arise. As a result, practitioners should be aware of ethical difficulties that arise frequently when caring for older patients. Poor patient-clinician communication can lead to ethical difficulties; as a result, we present practical guidelines for better communication. People were more likely to develop physical disabilities, despair, and cognitive impairment as they got older, especially those in the 80-89 age bracket. Current data for India's old provide a foreshadowing of a new challenges if programme managers and policymakers do not take prompt action in this area. There is a need to raise awareness of the medical and socioeconomic difficulties that India's elderly confronts and initiatives for improving their quality of life.