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In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments ordered school closures as a containment measure, with Israel being among over 100 countries to do so. This resulted in the abrupt shift to online and remote education for many students. Despite attempts to minimize the effects of disrupted education and create a dynamic virtual learning environment, the literature highlights various challenges including lack of communication with implications of distress faced by key stakeholders (students and their parents, teachers, and principals). In this cross-sectional study, we assess the perceived levels of communication and psychosocial aspects during both distance and frontal learning, as well as the long-term impacts (following over two and a half years of an ongoing pandemic) on distress among the key stakeholders of the Israeli education system- high school students, parents, teachers, and principals. The study findings demonstrate severe implications of distance learning on communication and psychosocial aspects, with lingering long-term impacts on distress, among all stakeholders (particularly among students). This reveals the need for tailored capacity building and resilience intervention programs to be integrated in the long-term response to the current ongoing pandemic to improve well-being and reduce distress among the various stakeholders, with particular attention to those that are most vulnerable and were hit the hardest.

The present study investigated predictors of psychological coping with adversity responses during the COVID-19 pandemic and an armed conflict. Two paired samples that represented the Israeli population that was exposed to both adversities were compared. Respondents rated five different psychological coping responses associated with the two adversities, such as anxiety or individual resilience. Perceived security, pandemic, economic, and political risks, as well as level of morale, were rated. Two major findings were disclosed by two path analyses. Morale improved the predictions of the varied coping responses in both the pandemic and conflict and was the best predictor of four out of five responses and the second-best predictor of the fifth response. Contrary to previous studies, our findings revealed that the concept of a single major predictor of coping responses under distress is an overgeneralization. In both cases, the coping responses were better explained by other perceived risks rather than by the risk of the investigated adversity. Rather than assume that a perceived security threat accounts for low levels of public moods, it is vital to study the antecedents of coping responses and to empirically examine additional potential predictors.

The current study measured national resilience (NR) in three different time frames during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Israel ( N = 804). We investigated two main issues: first, the direction and extent of NR changes during the crisis, and second, the predictors of NR. The results show the following: (a) the average NR score declined significantly across the three repeated measures, with a medium-size effect. (b) Three of the four identified NR factors declined significantly across the three measurements: belief in the government and the prime minister (large effect size); belief in civil society; and patriotism (medium effect size); while trust in Israeli national institutions was the lowest and did not weaken significantly. (c) Analyzing the prediction of NR factors indicated that the levels of the three NR factors mainly reflected one's political attitudes, sense of political and economic threats, rather than health threats. One conclusion concerns the importance of trust in leadership as the most sensitive component in the decline of national resilience following a crisis.

Considering the potential impact of COVID-19 on the civil society, a longitudinal study was conducted to identify levels of distress, resilience, and the subjective well-being of the population. The study is based on two repeated measurements conducted at the end of the pandemic's "first wave" and the beginning of the "second wave" on a sample ( n = 906) of Jewish Israeli respondents, who completed an online questionnaire distributed by an Internet panel company. Three groups of indicators were assessed: signs of distress (sense of danger, distress symptoms, and perceived threats), resilience (individual, community, and national), and subjective well-being (well-being, hope, and morale). Results indicated the following: (a) a significant increase in distress indicators, with effect sizes of sense of danger, distress symptoms, and perceived threats (Cohen's d 0.614, 0.120, and 0.248, respectively); (b) a significant decrease in resilience indicators, with effect sizes of individual, community, and national resilience (Cohen's d 0.153, 0.428, and 0.793, respectively); and (c) a significant decrease in subjective well-being indicators with effect sizes of well-being, hope, and morale (Cohen's d 0.116, 0.336, and 0.199, respectively). To conclude, COVID-19 had a severe, large-scale impact on the civil society, leading to multidimensional damage and a marked decrease in the individual, community, and national resilience of the population.

Extraordinary and unprecedented public health measures have been implemented to contain the ongoing spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. There is paramount importance of cooperation and population engagement in reducing disease infection rates and relieving an outbreak's burden on society. The civil society's engagement may be achieved through disaster education interventions. In this cross-sectional study, a pre-post questionnaire was used to investigate the impact of a brief educational intervention on knowledge, perceived knowledge, perceived safety, and the individual resilience of the population relating to the COVID-19 outbreak. The results of the study display the benefits of the educational intervention to include a significant overall increase in all examined variables. The study also reviewed the overall trust of the public concerning the main responding authorities, as well as practices concerning protective measures for COVID-19. This study demonstrates that educational interventions, such as the brief video, provide an easily implementable design and effective means for educating and empowering the public and should, thus, be considered as a component of future outbreak responses.

Providing health services through remote communications for sub-acute health issues during emergencies may help reduce the burden of the health care system and increase availability of care. This study aimed to investigate the attitudes of the public towards receiving medical services and providing medical information through remote communication in times of emergencies. During the pandemic outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), pandemic outbreak, 507 participants answered a structured online survey, rating their mean willingness to receive medical care and provide medical information, on a four-point Likert scale. Furthermore, demographic characteristics, social media use, and trust in data protection was collected. The mean willingness to receive medical services was 3.1 ± 0.6 and the mean willingness to provide medical information was 3.0 ± 0.7, with a strong significant correlation between the two ( r = 0.76). The multiple regression model identified higher trust in data protection, level of education, and social media use as statistically significant predictors for a higher willingness to receive medical information while the first two predicted willingness to provide information. The findings suggest an overall positive attitude to receive medical care through remote communications.

Background: This study investigated the relationship between training programmes for pandemic flu and level of knowledge of health-care professionals with performance in an avian flu exercise., Methods: Training programmes of all general hospitals in Israel for managing a pandemic influenza were evaluated. Spearman's ρ correlation was used to analyse the relationship between training scores and level of knowledge of medical personnel with performance in an avian flu exercise. Hospital preparedness levels were evaluated at two time points and Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to determine if overall preparedness scores improved over time., Results: Evaluation of training programmes for pandemic influenza showed high to very high scores in most hospitals (mean 85, SD 22). Significant correlations between training and performance in the exercise were noted for: implementation of training programmes 0.91, P = 0.000; designating personnel for training 0.87, P = 0.000; content of training 0.61, P = 0.001; and training materials 0.36, P = 0.05. Overall reliability of the evaluation scores was 0.82 and reliability for two of the sub-scales was: implementation of the programme 0.78; and designating personnel for training 0.37. No significant correlation was found between level of knowledge and performance in the exercise., Discussion: Training programmes for hospital personnel for pandemic flu have a significant role in improving performance in case of pandemic flu. The key component of the training programme appears to be the implementation of the programme. Use of knowledge tests should be further investigated, as they do not appear to correlate with the level of emergency preparedness for pandemic influenza.

Background: The growing numbers of H1N1 "swine influenza" cases should prompt national health systems to achieve dual preparedness: preparedness of clinicians to recognize and treat cases of human H1N1 flu, and national preparedness for an influenza pandemic. This is similar to recent contingency planning for an avian flu pandemic., Objectives: To evaluate hospital personnel's knowledge on avian flu (zoonotic, sporadic, pandemic), comparing among nurses, residents and faculty, and between those who attended lectures or other educational modalities targeted at avian flu and those who did not., Methods: A 14 item multiple choice questionnaire was designed to test crucial points concerning preparedness for human avian flu. The directors of 26 general hospitals were instructed by the Ministry of Health to improve knowledge of and preparedness for different avian flu scenarios, and to expect an official inspection. As part of this inspection, we distributed the questionnaires to nurses, residents and senior physicians., Results: Altogether, 589 questionnaires were collected from the 26 hospitals. Examinees who participated in training modules (course, lecture or any training provided by the hospital) did somewhat better (scoring 78 points out of 100) than those who did not attend the training (70 points) (P < 0.05). Differences in nurses' knowledge were even more striking: 66 points for the non-attendants compared to 79 for nurses who attended the lecture (P < 0.05). Residents had significantly lower scores compared to nurses or senior physicians: 70 compared to 77 and 78 respectively (P (0.05))., Conclusions: The knowledge of hospital clinicians regarding avian flu is moderate, but can be augmented by hospital-based educational efforts aimed at physicians and particularly nurses. Improving attendance rates at lectures and targeting residents will likely yield better results.

Introduction: Risk perception illustrates the subjective evaluation of individuals concerning the characteristics, severity, and capacity to cope with potential hazards. Risk perception influences attitudes and actions individuals take to protect themselves from future threats. Risk perceptions might change among different stakeholder groups such as society and first responders. Identifying risk perceptions of stakeholders is essential to establish effective protective measures. Method: This study investigated the commonalities and diversities in risk perception among first responders and the public, within and between seven European and beyond countries. A self-administered questionnaire was used to gather data from both first responders and civilians. They were asked to assess their risk perception level for five categories of risks (Extreme weather-related events, nature-related events, social disruptions, critical services dependencies, and pandemics). Results: Using Univariate Analysis of Variance showed disparity concerning both the levels of risk perception between the public and first responders, as well as their relative ranking. For example, concerning extreme weather-related and naturerelated events, risk perception levels of the first responders is higher than that of the population in six out of the seven studied countries. In contrast, the population's risk perception is higher compared to the first responders in six out of the seven countries, concerning critical infrastructure dependencies and pandemics. Discussion: The relative gaps between the first responders versus the population, within each country, vary considerably. Norway for example presents significant differences between the two internal populations concerning all risks (except for extreme weather), while in Sweden, no significant gaps were identified, concerning all five risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Managing pandemics is dependent on the adherence of civil societies to directives and recommendations issued by governmental and public health authorities. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, hurdles were encountered by authorities regarding public compliance to orders and recommendations of protective health behavior. The objective is to investigate the factors that most powerfully enhance or impede compliance to varied measures–both regulations (i.e. lockdown, mask wearing, social distancing) and recommendations (i.e. vaccination etc.) in Israel. Method: A longitudinal study, based on structured questionnaires was conducted to investigate factors that enhance or impede the uptake of protective health behavior throughout two years of COVID-19. Results: Various factors throughout different phases of the pandemic have been identified as playing a significant role in compliance. During the initial phases of the pandemic, the most salient factors for enhanced compliance to non-pharmaceutical interventions (lockdown) were concern for family or self-health, while deterrence played little role. During the fourth wave, findings indicated that pandemic fatigue had begun to have cascading effects on vaccination efforts. Particularly at this stage, trust in authorities and even threat perception components were incapable of predicting uptake, while perceived importance of the vaccine and its effectiveness positively and significantly predicted uptake. Throughout the pandemic, a negative correlation between levels of resilience and distress symptoms and a positive correlation between resilience and enhanced compliance were identified. Conclusion: Utilizing tools for empowering the population rather than instilling fear or other deterrence measures are more effective approaches to increase compliance with governmental directives. Furthermore, the results highlight the importance of adapting and adjusting risk communication efforts to accommodate specific concerns and hesitations demonstrated by distinct groups during an evolving pandemic. Public health officials and authorities need to engage the public in resilience building activities to promote compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2007, the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine established a Task Force to develop standard operating procedures (SOPs) for operating intensive care units (ICU) during an influenza epidemic or mass disaster. To provide direction for health care professionals in the preparation and management of emergency ICU situations during an influenza epidemic or mass disaster, standardize activities, and promote coordination and communication among the medical teams. Based on a literature review and contributions of content experts, a list of essential categories for managing emergency situations in the ICU were identified. Based on three cycles of a modified Delphi process, consensus was achieved regarding the categories. A primary author along with an expert group drafted SOPs for each category. Based on the Delphi cycles, the following key topics were found to be important for emergency preparedness: triage, infrastructure, essential equipment, manpower, protection of staff and patients, medical procedures, hospital policy, coordination and collaboration with interface units, registration and reporting, administrative policies and education. The draft SOPs serve as benchmarks for emergency preparedness and response of ICUs to emergencies or outbreak of pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic, compliance to governmental orders is a challenge in the effort to contain the spread of the virus. A cross-sectional study of the Israeli population during the first wave of the outbreak is utilized to elucidate factors that enhance or impede public compliance to the governmental regulation of lockdown and illustrate the practical complexities of staying at home for an elongated time duration. A structured questionnaire was utilized to investigate compliance with home isolation, factors that enhance and impede compliance, activities engaged during lockdown, personal resilience, and level of individual distress during the first wave of COVID-19 in Israel. The most salient factors for enhanced compliance were concern for family or self-health (63.4 % and 56.3 % respectively), while deterrence played little role (18.5 %). Desire to maintain a normal life and fear of economic loss were the most significant factors that impeded compliance. A negative correlation between the levels of resilience and distress symptoms (r = 0.318 p <.001), and a positive correlation between resilience and enhanced compliance with home isolation (r = 0.225 p <.001) were identified. Utilizing tools for empowering the population rather than instilling fear or other deterrence measures are more effective approaches to increase compliance with governmental directives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health officials and authorities need to engage the public in resilience building activities, in order to promote compliance to isolation measures. These findings have valuable implications for authorities in ensuring compliance to current and potential future stay-at-home orders for outbreaks. • The study identified factors that enhance/impede compliance to lockdown. • Concern for family/self-health are most salient in enhancing compliance. • Fines or punishment do not substantially impact compliance during COVID-19. • Desire to maintain a normal life and fear of economic loss impede compliance. • Resilience is associated with enhanced compliance to home isolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]