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The social distancing imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the digitalisation of societies, which also influenced habits related to the consumption and dissemination of news. In this context, older individuals are often blamed for contributing to disinformation, which is associated with the echo chambers fostered by social media. Mass media, social media and personal communication tools act as mass, social or personal intermediaries when it comes to keeping up to date with the news. This paper analyses the preferred intermediaries of older online adults (aged 60 and over) for following the news and how they change over time. We analysed two waves of an online survey-based longitudinal study conducted in Canada and Spain, before Covid-19 pandemic (2016/17), and during Covid-19 (in 2020). We found that most participants exclusively use mass intermediaries or combine mass with social and personal intermediaries to keep abreast of the news. However, only 28% of respondents inform themselves exclusively through the alleged echo chambers of social and personal intermediaries. Results also show that media ecologies evolve in different directions, and, despite the forced digitalisation driven by the pandemic, digital media usage did not always increase or evolve towards newer technologies. This paper contributes to understanding the diverse intermediaries used by older adults to obtain news and how such media ecologies can contribute to contrasting different sources of information beyond the alleged echo chambers of social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The football rivalry between Real Madrid CF and FC Barcelona is one of the most popular at club level globally. In Spain, where it is known as El Clásico (the Classic), it has an unrivalled status in the sports media industry. Its significance relies in part to the historical tension between Catalonia, the region of which Barcelona is the main centre, and Madrid, the capital of Spain. The exaltation of confrontation and partisanship is the central feature of highly popular radio programmes devoted to El Clásico. This study aimed to observe how the media discourse articulated by these programmes was affected by the fact that, during the Covid-19 pandemic, matches were played in empty venues. Through the comparisons of broadcasts of two games, one from 2017 and from 2020, the paper shows that the sensationalistic style is toned down, and a less polarised and partisan sports journalism is possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A global disaster, such as the recent Covid-19 pandemic, affects every aspect of our lives and there is a need to investigate these highly complex phenomena if one aims to diminish their impact in the health of the population, as well as their socio-economic stability. In this paper we present an attempt to understand the role of the governmental authorities and the response of the rest of the population facing such emergencies. We present a mathematical model that takes into account the epidemiological features of the pandemic and also the actions of people responding to it, focusing only on three aspects of the system, namely, the fear of catching this serious disease, the impact on the economic activities and the compliance of the people to the mitigating measures adopted by the authorities. We apply the model to the specific case of Spain, since there are accurate data available about these three features. We focused on tourism as an example of the economic activity, since this sector of economy is one of the most likely to be affected by the restrictions imposed by the authorities, and because it represents an important part of Spanish economy. The results of numerical calculations agree with the empirical data in such a way that we can acquire a better insight of the different processes at play in such a complex situation, and also in other different circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and Objectives: This paper aims to examine the satisfaction and depressed mood experienced by nursing home workers during the COVID‐19 pandemic and associated variables. Specifically, to analyse the factors that may contribute to nursing home workers developing adaptive behaviours that promote satisfaction or, on the contrary, show characteristics associated with a negative mood. Background: Nursing homes have faced unprecedented pressures to provide appropriately skills to meet the demands of the coronavirus outbreak. Design: A cross‐sectional survey design using the STROBE checklist. Methods: Professionals working in nursing homes (n = 165) completed an online survey measuring sociodemographic and professional characteristics, burnout, resilience, experiential avoidance, satisfaction with life and depression. Data were collected online from April to July 2021, the time in which Spain was experiencing its fifth wave of COVID‐19. Two multiple linear regression models were performed to identify salient variables associated with depressive mood and satisfaction. Results: Resilience, personal accomplishment and satisfaction had a significant and negative relationship with depression and emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and experiential avoidance had a positive relationship with depression. However, emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and experiential avoidance had a negative and significant relationship with satisfaction and personal accomplishment, and resilience had a positive and significant relationship with satisfaction. In addition, it was found that accepting thoughts and emotions when they occur is beneficial for developing positive outcomes such as satisfaction. Conclusions: Experiential avoidance was an important predictor of the effects that the COVID‐19 pandemic can have on nursing home workers. Relevance to Clinical Practice: Interventions focusing on resources that represent personal strengths, such as acceptance, resilience and personal accomplishment, should be developed. No Patient or Public Contribution: The complex and unpredictable circumstances of COVID's strict confinement in the nursing home prohibited access to the centres for external personnel and family members. Contact with the professionals involved could not be made in person but exclusively through online systems. However, professionals related to the work environment have subsequently valued this research positively as it analyses 'How they felt during this complicated process'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Brexit referendum results, there may have been fears that a significant part of the British population in Spain, one of the largest outside the Commonwealth, would return to the United Kingdom. This paper uses different sources to assess whether, on the one hand, such a return movement has existed and, on the other hand, whether it could exist in the future. To do so, we analyse data from the Spanish Population Register (Padrón) and the Residential Variation Statistics (EVR) from 2003 to 2021, and a survey carried out in 2020 of 643 British people over 55 years of age living in Spain. In relation to the registry data, it has been observed that the return movement after Brexit has not been as significant as might be expected at a time of great uncertainty. Only in 2021 it was detected an increase in return movements, especially above the age of 75, probably caused by the end of the application of the Withdrawal Agreement. On the other hand, the survey results show that the intention to return is lower than in other similar surveys that have been carried out in the past, even in another COVID‐19 outbreak scenario. Moreover, this intention to return is especially related to variables linked to insertion, such as not being properly registered or owning a property in the United Kingdom, among other variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social networks and official statistics have become vital sources of information in times of health emergencies. The ability to monitor and profile social sentiment is essential for understanding public perception and response in the context of public health crises, such as the one resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. This study will explore how social sentiment monitoring and profiling can be conducted using information from social networks and official statistics, and how this combination of data can offer a more complete picture of social dynamics in times of emergency, providing a valuable tool for understanding public perception and guiding a public health response. To this end, a three-layer architecture based on Big Data and Artificial Intelligence is presented: the first layer focuses mainly on collecting, storing, and governing the necessary data such as social media and official statistics; in the second layer, the representation models and machine learning necessary for knowledge generation are built, and in the third layer the previously generated knowledge is adapted for better understanding by crisis managers through visualization techniques among others. Based on this architecture, a KDD (Knowledge Discovery in Databases) framework is implemented using methodological tools such as sentiment analysis, fuzzy 2-tuple linguistic models and time series prediction with the Prophet model. As a practical demonstration of the proposed model, we use tweets as data source (from the social network X, formerly known as Twitter) generated during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown period in Spain, which are processed to identify the overall sentiment using sentiment analysis techniques and fuzzy linguistic variables, and combined with official statistical indicators for prediction, visualizing the results through dashboards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Fever stands out as the predominant clinical indicator in infancy. Pediatricians encounter fever routinely in their daily practice, playing a crucial role in their interactions with children and families. Objective: The aim is to examine pediatricians' viewpoints, understanding, and approaches regarding childhood fever in two healthcare settings: pediatric hospitalization (emergency and inpatient ward) and primary care. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted using an ethnomethodological approach. Pediatricians working in the specified pediatric settings participated in in-depth interviews where theoretical clinical cases were presented for analysis. Results: Following the examination of the discourses, the codes were organized into eight categories: Understanding of fever, Significance ascribed to fever, Therapeutic strategies, Engagement with the evidence, Family apprehensions regarding fever, Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Inter- and intra-professional relationships, and Suggestions for change: Conclusions: Pediatricians acknowledge the importance of addressing discomfort in the treatment of fever, but express challenges in implementing these recommendations. Pediatricians in inpatient settings emphasize the need for enhanced parental education from primary care, while those in primary care recognize the potential for improvement. Inpatient pediatricians are open to implementing changes in their daily practices, particularly concerning the administration of antipyretics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 has made visible and deepened inequalities globally, while also manifesting the vital role of functional food, health, and care systems in a context of strong socio-ecological interdependencies. We here mobilize bio– and necro–politics to problematize the declaration of agricultural workers as 'essential' and the accompanying policies during the early months of the pandemic, focusing on the region of Lleida, Spain. We show how this proclaimed indispensibility was aiming mostly at securing cheap labor to agri-business while workers continued to be treated as expendable. An intersectionality lens allows us to understand discrimination and racism as health determinants, operating within and defining 'glocal' food necropolitics and COVID-19 biopolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mobility and activity restrictions imposed in Spain due to the COVID-19 pandemic caused a significant improvement in the urban noise pollution that could be objectively measured in those cities with acoustic sensor networks deployed. This significant change in the urban soundscapes was also perceived by citizens who positively appraised this new acoustic scenario. In this work, authors present a comparative analysis between different noise indices provided by 70 sound sensors deployed in Barcelona, both during and before the lockdown, and the results of a perceptual test conducted in the framework of the project Sons al Balcó during the lockdown, which received more than one hundred contributions in Barcelona alone. The analysis has been performed by clustering the objective and subjective data according to the predominant noise sources in the location of the sensors and differentiating road traffic in heavy, moderate and low-traffic areas. The study brings out strong alignments between a decline in noise indices, acoustic satisfaction improvement and changes in the predominant noise sources, supporting the idea that objective calibrated data can be useful to make a qualitative approximation to the subjective perception of urban soundscapes when further information is not available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 pandemic led to significant changes in domestic water use in many cities. One important question is whether and to what extent the pandemic stressed the resilience of the water supply system. Another question examined in the paper is whether changes in water use during confinement differed according to the sociospatial configuration of cities. We examine these questions in the context of a medium size city of Northern Spain characterized by a mix of residential land uses, and internal variations in education, age composition, and income, producing step gradients in water use. First, we select and analyze influencing factors in domestic water consumption. Second, using statistical regression tests, we assess whether or not and to what extent the same factors influenced consumption during the COVID 19 lockdown. Results indicate that COVID-19 related confinement increased work and study from home and reinforced WASH habits, leading to more water consumption. However, this increase was larger in medium and low-income neighborhoods than in high-income neighborhoods, showing the relevance of sociodemographic factors but also of other variables more relevant for outdoor water use such as precipitation. Despite this rise in consumption, the water supply system was able to withstand the shock caused by confinement showing a robust resilience both in physical and in social terms. However, more challenging scenarios such as the coincidence of a pandemic with a severe drought should be taken into account in future resilience development. • Sociodemographic and urban factors played an important role in explaining domestic water consumption patterns during COVID-19 lockdowns. • Households in multifamily buildings or apartment blocks with medium-low incomes and significant presence of young people recorded the largest relative increases of water consumption during these lockdowns. • Weather conditions are key in domestic water consumption during the COVID 19 lockdown especially in areas with a large presence of single houses. • The water supply system was resilient and could withstand the increase in consumption caused by confinement as well as provide for financial assistance to vulnerable households. Policies should take into account the possible coincidence in time of unexpected phenomena such as COVID-19 with droughts already stressing urban resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instances of crisis have always marked pivotal moments in housing design, acting as catalysts for re-evaluating models and practices and bringing forth systemic changes already latent in the discipline. Such revelation of hidden latencies is a characteristic phenomenon of today's housing panorama, influenced by factors such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the imperative shift toward ecological sustainability, and a growing discourse prompting the reconsideration of the human body at both individual and social levels. This article delves into such a system of adjustments within the contextualised case of Spanish social housing. It does so by focusing on two complementary sources. Firstly, recent shifts in housing policies, encompassing new regulations, programs, legal frameworks, and urban strategies; and secondly, a selection of projects emerging from competitions and new developments that either anticipate or result from these policy changes, introducing innovative design devices working on the following fronts: (1) the presence of nature and open space, interpreted as a fundamental element for social comfort related with broader ecological concerns, (2) a heterogeneous and complex articulation of in-between collective spaces, responding to emerging trends around the concept of sharing, and (3) the reconceptualization of the traditional core of interior private space, namely the kitchen, which in turn raises important questions on gender equality and care. Analysing the ever-evolving interplay between policies and practices, theories and projects, will reveal that the multifaceted crises of recent decades have played a pivotal role in shaping a redefined understanding of domestic spaces. Most significantly, this reinterpretation goes beyond addressing environmental sustainability and energy efficiency, placing a great emphasis on social innovation within and beyond the home, inside and outside the building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a need to promote the most adequate behaviors. It is essential to know what aspects were implemented and what needs to be re-enforced. Objectives. (a) To identify the knowledge and behaviors related with preventive measures, lifestyle habits, sources of information, vaccination, and emotions generated and coping strategies and (b) to explore the personal experiences with respect to the knowledge, attitudes, and practices when facing COVID-19. Design. A convergent mixed method design. Setting and Participants. This study was conducted in the Segrià region (Catalonia, Spain) during the months of January and February 2022, with individuals 18 years old or older. Methods. Based on variables proposed by the WHO and a bibliographic review, an ad hoc electronic survey was utilized for the quantitative part, analyzed through frequency distribution or central tendency and dispersion measurements. For the qualitative part, two focus groups were analyzed through content analysis. Results. The participants (n QUAN = 1,559; n QUAL = 19) were aware about and applied the prevention measures, but when delving into it, deficiencies were detected especially when referring to hand-washing; lifestyles remained healthy; the population trusted the information from professionals (78.8%), but excess of information led to saturation; protection (75.3%) and herd immunity (47.2%) were recognized with vaccination; and the psychological impact (69.5%) was buffered with the activation of positive coping measures (99.1%), although it was maintained in more than half of them. Conclusions. This study showed that prevention measures must be re-enforced, especially hand-washing. Another revealing aspect was psychological impact, which, although coping measures were utilized, was maintained for another two years in most of them. This evidences the need for an intervention centered on this to guarantee the mental health of the population. Implications for Nursing Management. The detection of the current needs of the population provides the information necessary for the design of an adapted intervention and for promoting health education programs to address COVID-19 or other future health situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic caused an international health emergency situation where nursing took on a fundamental role. The high number of patients in hospital ICUs led to a shift in nurses' working conditions and workload. Objective: The objective of this study was to describe the experiences of nurses who worked in ICUs during the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methodology: A qualitative, descriptive study was carried out, with the participation of 21 nurses who worked in the ICU during the pandemic. Data collection took place between May and July 2021 through 21 in-depth interviews. Results: Three main themes emerged: (1) COVID-19 in ICUs: nurses on the frontline. (2) United against adversity: teamwork. (3) New optics of critical care and the nursing profession. COVID-19 was perceived with harshness, and the lack of knowledge about the virus generated confusion, anxiety and fear due to the risk of transmission to family members and relatives. The pandemic marked a shift in the management of human, material and economic resources. Novice nurses learned critical care at an accelerated pace, with significant physical and psychological strain. Expert nurses carried the burden of training new nurses. Although there were tense situations, experiencing these adverse situations as a team led to feelings of increased belonging, togetherness and professional bonding for nurses. While the participants noted an increase in motivation to continue in their profession, they also had a feeling of not having been cared for as they deserve by healthcare institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Oral endocrine therapy is a key component of breast cancer treatment in hormone-positive patients, the most frequent subtype of this cancer. Adherence to this treatment is a factor related to an increased probability of relapse and death. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disruptive impact on the use of cancer services, delaying diagnosis and stopping screening during the peak of the pandemic. We assessed the impact of the COVID-19 on the adherence to oral endocrine therapy in Catalonia (Spain) using the data collected in the clinical records of the public health care system. We have found that the first wave of the COVID-19 (between March and September 2020) was associated with a modest impact on treatment adherence. Purpose. To assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adherence to oral endocrine therapy in patients diagnosed with breast cancer in the public healthcare system in Catalonia (Spain). Methods. Retrospective cohort study in patients starting endocrine therapy from 2017 to 2021. Adherence was measured during the first year of treatment, and the impact of the pandemic was calculated according to the calendar year and whether the first year of treatment included the peak period of the pandemic in our setting (March–September 2020). Analyses were performed using a chi-square test and multivariable logistic regression, with results stratified by year, age group, and drug type. Results. Mean overall adherence during the first year of treatment was 89.6% from 2017 to 2021. In contrast, the patients who started treatment in 2019 and 2020 and whose treatment included the peak pandemic period presented an adherence of 87.0% and 86.5%, respectively. Young age and tamoxifen or combination therapy were predictors of low adherence. An increase in neoadjuvant therapy was also observed in 2020. Conclusions. The COVID-19 pandemic had only a modest impact on adherence to endocrine therapy (≈3%), despite the enormous disruptions for patients, the healthcare system in general, and cancer care in particular that were occurring in that period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background: The display of compassionate care by palliative care professionals is of the utmost importance to the patients, their families, and even to their own professional well-being. Lately and, especially due to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, palliative care professionals have been subjected to greater pressures stemming from their work environment, organizational standpoint, and emotional sense of view. Not only have these factors made it harder for professionals to deliver compassionate care to their patients, but they have also decreased their overall well-being. The aim is to study how sociodemographics, workplace characteristics, internal resources, and the COVID-19 pandemic-derived pressures have affected the professionals' capacity to perform compassionate care and their well-being while at the same time exploring the relationship between compassionate care and well-being. Methods: This study used a cross-sectional design with data gathered from Spanish palliative care professionals. The final sample was formed by 241 participants. They were surveyed about compassion, professional quality of life, well-being, sociodemographic data, working conditions, self-care, and coping with death competence, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analyses used were descriptive statistics, bivariate tests, and the construction of a structural equation model. Results: Compassion was predicted by the ability to control their workload and the ability to cope with death. Burnout was predicted by age, workload, workload control, self-care, material resources, and changes in teamwork. Moreover, compassion, age, workload control, and changes in teamwork and self-care were shown to significantly predict compassion satisfaction. When it comes to compassion fatigue, different variables were shown to predict it, those being compassion, control over the workload, social self-care, and the ability to cope with death. Conclusions: Having a healthy lifestyle and an adequate social support system is key to maintaining professional well-being in the case of palliative care professionals. Inner resources such as the ability to perform self-care and the capacity to cope with death are of vital importance to taking care of these professionals. Thus, it would be beneficial to establish training programs focused on these aspects in the myriad of sanitary centers that perform these tasks, as these abilities are necessary to withstand the work-related pressures and, at the same time, be able to provide compassionate care for patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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