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This study examined how organizations may promote their employees' mental health in difficult times. Drawing from organizational crisis communication and organizational health promotion research, it proposed and tested a dual-process model that links leadership health support, an essential dimension of organizational health culture, with organizational leaders' crisis communication (i.e. use of ethical-base responses) and workers' self-care awareness and perceived stress in a crisis. Through a survey of 502 full-time U.S. employees conducted during COVID-19, we found that organizational leaders' use of ethical-base responses predicted employees' enhanced self-care awareness and decreased stress levels. Further, leadership health support provided a double-buffer effect to sustain employee mental health by directly bolstering employees' self-care awareness and organizational leaders' use of ethical-base responses. The findings of this study bridge the gaps in organizational health promotion and crisis communication literature and offer practical suggestions for organizations seeking to foster employees' mental health challenges during crises.

One of the most detrimental side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is the needed but not received care. Forgone health care affects the general public, but particularly children with special care needs. Previous research focused on non-modifiable factors, such as demographic background and insurance coverage. Based on Politi and Street's model of collaborative decision-making, we explored how two modifiable communication factors contributed to the prevention of forgone pediatric care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a nationally representative sample ( n  = 10845) from the 2020 National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH) survey, we found that health-care providers' family-centered communication and shared decision-making may reduce the possibility of forgone care through improved satisfaction with providers' communication. For children with mental health needs, providers' family-centered communication may also stimulate family's capacity to openly communicate, leading to better involvement in care and timely health care seeking. This helps to address COVID-related uncertainty, prevent higher health-care expenditures, and reduce negative health outcomes.

Objective: Telehealth usage for healthcare encounters has increased dramatically due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) precautions. As the pandemic health threat subsides, it is important to understand how telehealth encounters are perceived by users. In this study, we explore how patient-centered communication (PCC), and media and organizational factors, influence patients' intentions to use telehealth in the future., Methods: An online survey was conducted among 326 adult patients who reported visiting a healthcare provider using telehealth within the past 12 months. Structural equation modeling explored how contextual factors influenced patients' adoption of telehealth., Results: PCC and ease of use indirectly predicted telehealth adoption through enhanced patient satisfaction and sense of care continuity. Sense of security indirectly predicted telehealth adoption via its association with enhanced rating of care quality., Conclusion: The functionality of telehealth technology does not solely determine patients' telehealth adoption. Instead, positive healthcare experiences, facilitated by organizational support, quality media designs, as well as patient-centered communication, are associated with telehealth adoption., Practice Implications: Healthcare providers should strategically improve telehealth-related communication processes that can lead to better patient health outcomes., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

As China launches its second COVID-19 booster campaign and races to bring new vaccine technologies to protect against severe COVID-19 infections, there is limited research on how Chinese residents search for vaccine-related information. This study examined the factors influencing Chinese residents' information-seeking behaviors regarding COVID-19 boosters with a sample of 616 respondents with a mean age of 31.53 from a research panel. Structural equation modeling was used to report factors that influenced respondents' seeking intent. The results indicated that seeking-related subjective norms (β = −0.55, p < 0.001), negative affect (β = 0.08, p < 0.05), positive affect (β = 0.18, p < 0.001), and perceived knowledge insufficiency (β = 0.10, p < 0.001) are strong predictors of one's seeking intent. We also discovered that there was an inverse relationship between risk perception and positive affect (β = −0.55, p < 0.001) and between negative and positive affect (β = −0.19, p < 0.01), while all measurements were either directly or indirectly related to information-seeking intent. A few more indirect but important relationships were also included in our discussion. In conclusion, the present study helps understand what motivates Chinese residents to seek COVID-19 booster information when limited information is available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]