Search

Introduction: Health professionals that act as lecturers in higher education necessitate the acquisition of pedagogical skills along with clinical ones. Consequently, pedagogical training courses have been introduced as part of professional development or within university curricula. While several studies explored the experiences of attending courses on pedagogical methodology, there is a notable gap in the literature within the rehabilitation field. Hence, this qualitative study explored the experience of Italian postgraduate health professionals in rehabilitation about the experience of attending pedagogical methodology courses in their postgraduate education., Materials and Methods: A qualitative focus group study was carried out. Specifically, the authors purposefully recruited participants with different professional backgrounds (physiotherapy, speech therapy, and others) with or without lecturing experience. Recent graduates and students of the Master of Science in 'Rehabilitative Sciences of the Health Professions' at the University of Verona (Verona, Italy) were recruited. The focus groups were analysed following a 'Reflexive Thematic Analysis' by Braun & Clarke within a social constructionist framework., Results: Three focus groups were conducted with seventeen Italian participants (age: 33 ± 9; 71% women, n = 12; 29% men, n = 5). The analysis identified three main themes: 1) "A Brave New Pedagogical World," reflecting participants' exposure to innovative teaching approaches; 2) "Becoming a Cutting-Edge Lecturer," highlighting skills acquired for delivering inspiring lectures; and 3) "Something Beyond Pedagogy," where participants reported skills applicable to other professional contexts, including clinical practice., Conclusion: The results of this study showed that pedagogical courses provide a positive learning experience for rehabilitation health professionals, helping them develop relevant pedagogical skills. Although our findings suggest the potential benefits of these courses in preparing healthcare professionals for teaching roles, further studies are needed to evaluate their direct impact on educational practices and patient outcomes., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Bertoni et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: Despite the numerous campaigns to encourage vaccination against COVID-19, the public debate and often conflicting information have left many individuals uncertain about the decision to make on whether or not to vaccinate., Methods: This research aims to analyze the attitudes and beliefs of the Italian population towards COVID-19 and other vaccinations through a quantitative methodology. In all, 500 adults (Age M = 39.52) participated in this exploratory study with an online questionnaire conducted in April 2021., Results: most participants believe vaccination is necessary to defeat COVID-19; there is an age-related difference in getting vaccinations, and women were more afraid of unexpected future effects than men; older participants have expressed a greater willingness to pay to be vaccinated against COVID-19 (4)., Conclusion: In light of these results, it is necessary to pay greater attention to the perplexity and fears expressed by the population, especially women and youth, in relation to vaccinations; in fact, it would help to achieve a wider adherence to the tools designed to contain the spread of viruses at the base of severe health crises.

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 in Italy had its first epidemic manifestations on January 31, 2020. The socio-sanitary rules imposed by the government concerned the social distance and management of intimate relationships, the sense of individual responsibility toward public health. Physical distancing and housing isolation have produced new representations of intrafamily, generational, neighborhood, community responsibility, bringing out a new "medicalized dimension" of society. In light of this contextual framework, the research aims are to analyze how: the perception of individual responsibility for public and familial health and physical distancing has redrawn the relation between subjects-family-community; the State's technical-health intervention has reformulated the idea of social closeness, but also how the pandemic fear and social confinement has re-evaluated a desire for community, neighborhood, proximity; during the lockdown families, friends, neighbors have reconstructed feelings of closeness and forms of belonging. The methodology used is quanti-qualitative and involved 300 women through an online questionnaire. The data collected highlight how the house during the lockdown is perceived as a safe place and how women implement both the recommendations and the behaviors aimed at preventing contagion, but also ways that allow coping with the situation from a perspective of well-being. Furthermore, the data show how the dimension of distancing has loosened the relational dimension outside the family unit, with a greater distancing compared to pre-pandemic data. However, the majority of women report that they have joined solidarity initiatives, demonstrating that they want to maintain ties and participate actively in community life., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Parisi, Lagomarsino, Rania and Coppola.)