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Background: Climate change and related environmental events represent major global challenges and are often accompanied by the spread of misinformation on social media. According to previous reviews, the dissemination of this misinformation on various social media platforms requires deeper exploration. Moreover, the findings reported applied mainly to the context of the United States, limiting the possibility of extending the results to other settings., Objective: This study aims to assess the current state of knowledge about misinformation concerning climate change and related environmental events that are circulating on social media. More specifically, we will explore past and current themes, actors, and sources, and the dissemination of this misinformation within the Canadian context., Methods: This scoping review protocol follows the methodological approach developed by Arksey and O'Malley and advanced by Levac, complemented by the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) checklist and the best practice guidance for the development of scoping review protocols. Following the identification of the research questions and assisted by a specialized librarian, we developed search strategies for selected bibliographic databases (MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, and GreenFILE) and for gray literature (Google and pertinent databases) searches. Bibliographic and gray literature will be searched to identify relevant publications. In total, 2 members of our team will use the review software Covidence (Veritas Health Innovation) to independently select publications to include in the review. Publications specifically addressing our research questions, peer-reviewed, evidence-based, and published from January 1, 2000, in the full-text version in English or French will be included. Data will be extracted from the included publications to chart, among other items, the years of publication, geographic areas, themes, actors, and sources of the climate change-related misinformation and conclusions reported. Our team will then synthesize the extracted data to articulate the current state of knowledge relating to our research inquiries., Results: The research questions were identified in January 2024. The search strategies were developed from January to March 2024 for MEDLINE, Embase, and Web of Science and in July 2024 for GreenFILE and gray literature. MEDLINE, Embase, and Web of Science searches were launched on March 26, 2024. The first of 2 rounds of selection of publications identified through these databases was achieved in April 2024., Conclusions: This protocol will enable us to identify the evolution of themes, actors, and sources of misinformation regarding climate change and related environmental events on social media, including the latest platforms, and to potentially identify a context particular to Canada. As misinformation is known to undermine actions and public support in the fight against climate change, we intend to facilitate the targeting of efforts to combat misinformation related to climate change in an up-to-date and contextualized manner., International Registered Report Identifier (irrid): DERR1-10.2196/59345., (©Maryline Vivion, Valérie Trottier, Ève Bouhêlier, Isabelle Goupil-Sormany, Thierno Diallo. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (https://www.researchprotocols.org), 31.10.2024.)

Background: Human activities have significantly contributed to a persistent climate change trend, posing substantial threats to human health. Nurses regularly interact with patients experiencing the consequences of climate change, making their engagement in addressing this issue crucial. Nonetheless, our understanding of nurses' viewpoints regarding climate change remains limited., Aim: This scoping review aims to identify practicing nurses' and nursing students' perceptions of climate change., Design: To fulfil this objective, a documentary search strategy was developed using an iterative process., Methods: The search strategy was tested in four bibliographic databases, as well as in the grey literature. A 2-stage selection process was conducted, and relevant data were extracted from selected articles for analysis., Results: Twenty-two scientific articles and 11 documents from nursing associations were selected. The findings suggest that while many nurses and nursing students are concerned about climate change and its effects on their patients' health, their role in addressing the climate crisis is not well understood. Many barriers such as having a heavy workload and the lack of support hindered their ability to adjust their practice in response to the changing climate. Furthermore, many expressed a need for trainings on climate change issues., Conclusions: These results raise a great and urgent demand for these professionals to receive appropriate training to cope with climatic threats to health. Future research should focus on the development of nursing climate leadership, and healthcare organizations should support nursing initiatives and help raise nurses' awareness regarding climate change., (© 2024 The Author(s). Nursing Open published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Introduction: Some studies have found hot temperatures to be associated with exacerbations of schizophrenia, namely psychoses. As climate changes faster in Northern countries, our understanding of the association between temperature and hospital admissions (HA) for psychosis needs to be deepened., Objectives: 1) Among adults diagnosed with schizophrenia, measure the relationship between mean temperatures and HAs for psychosis during summer. 2) Determine the influence of individual and ecological characteristics on this relationship., Methods: A cohort of adults diagnosed with schizophrenia (n = 30,649) was assembled using Quebec's Integrated Chronic Disease Surveillance System (QICDSS). The follow-up spanned summers from 2001 to 2019, using hospital data from the QICDSS and meteorological data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Daymet database. In four geographic regions of the province of Quebec, a conditional logistic regression was used for the case-crossover analysis of the relationship between mean temperatures (at lags up to 6 days) and HAs for psychosis using a distributed lag non-linear model (DLNM). The analyses were adjusted for relative humidity, stratified according to individual (age, sex, and comorbidities) and ecological (material and social deprivation index and exposure to green space) factors, and then pooled through a meta-regression., Results: The statistical analyses revealed a statistically significant increase in HAs three days (lag 3) after elevated mean temperatures corresponding to the 90th percentile relative to a minimum morbidity temperature (MMT) (OR 1.040; 95% CI 1.008-1.074), while the cumulative effect over six days was not statistically significant (OR 1.052; 95% IC 0.993-1.114). Stratified analyses revealed non statistically significant gradients of increasing HAs relative to increasing material deprivation and decreasing green space levels., Conclusions: The statistical analyses conducted in this project showed the pattern of admissions for psychosis after hot days. This finding could be useful to better plan health services in a rapidly changing climate., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Climate change is a major threat to human health. Nurses are in contact with patients suffering from the effects of climate change in their daily work. Therefore, they need to be involved in combating it at both the individual and collective levels. However, there is still very little known about nurses' perception of climate change and their role toward it. A few recent studies have embarked on the process of examining the perceptions of these health professionals relative to climate change, but no exploratory review of the literature has been conducted on nurses' perception of this phenomenon., Objective: The purpose of this protocol is to develop a research strategy for an exploratory review of the literature focused on identifying nurses' perceptions of climate change., Methods: Firstly, with the help of a specialized librarian, we defined keywords and their combinations, using an iterative process, to develop a documentary search strategy. This strategy was tested in the following four bibliographic databases: MEDLINE (PubMed), CINAHL, Embase, and Web of Science. A search of the grey literature will also be conducted to supplement the results of the bibliographic database search. The next step will be for 2 members of the research team to carry out a 2-stage selection process using the web-based systematic review software Covidence. They will carry out this selection process independently, with the aim of identifying relevant studies that meet the inclusion criteria for our exploratory review. Finally, data on year of publication, authors, geographic area, article type, study objectives, methodology, and key findings will be extracted from selected articles for analysis. The data will be analyzed by the research team based on an in-depth examination of the findings and will be directed toward answering the research question and fulfilling the study's objective., Results: The results will help in defining nurses' perceptions of climate change more clearly as well as the role they can play and what they need to be able to bring forward solutions to this phenomenon. The findings should also serve to guide the health sector and nursing faculty's interventions aimed at preparing health professionals to act on the potential threats associated with climate change., Conclusions: The preliminary search suggests a possible gap between the importance of the nursing role in addressing the health impacts of climate change and the nurses' lack of knowledge and awareness on this matter. The results will allow for raising nurses' awareness of their role in the fight against climate change and the ways to address its health effects. This study will also open up new research perspectives on how to equip nurses to better integrate response to climate change issues into their professional practice., International Registered Report Identifier (irrid): DERR1-10.2196/42516., (©Thierno Diallo, Anouk Bérubé, Martin Roberge, Pierre-Paul Audate, Stéphanie Larente-Marcotte, Édith Jobin, Nisrine Moubarak, Laurence Guillaumie, Sophie Dupéré, Anne Guichard, Isabelle Goupil-Sormany. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (https://www.researchprotocols.org), 11.01.2023.)

The objective of this study was to validate the use of spring water gargle (SWG) as an alternative to oral and nasopharyngeal swab (ONPS) for SARS-CoV-2 detection with a laboratory-developed test. Healthcare workers and adults from the general population, presenting to one of two COVID-19 screening clinics in Montréal and Québec City, were prospectively recruited to provide a gargle sample in addition to the standard ONPS. The paired specimens were analyzed using thermal lysis followed by a laboratory-developed nucleic acid amplification test (LD-NAAT) to detect SARS-CoV-2, and comparative performance analysis was performed. An individual was considered infected if a positive result was obtained on either sample. A total of 1297 adult participants were recruited. Invalid results (n = 18) were excluded from the analysis. SARS-CoV-2 was detected in 144/1279 (11.3%) participants: 126 from both samples, 15 only from ONPS, and 3 only from SWG. Overall, the sensitivity was 97.9% (95% CI: 93.7-99.3) for ONPS and 89.6% (95% CI: 83.4-93.6; p = 0.005) for SWG. The mean ONPS cycle threshold (C t ) value was significantly lower for the concordant paired samples as compared to discordant ones (22.9 vs. 32.1; p < 0.001). In conclusion, using an LD-NAAT with thermal lysis, SWG is a less sensitive sampling method than the ONPS. However, the higher acceptability of SWG might enable a higher rate of detection from a population-based perspective. Nonetheless, in patients with a high clinical suspicion of COVID-19, a repeated analysis with ONPS should be considered. The sensitivity of SWG using NAAT preceded by chemical extraction should be evaluated., (© 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Background: This PRONTO study investigated the clinical performance of the Abbott ID NOW TM (IDN) COVID-19 diagnostic assay used at point of care and its impact on turnaround time for divulgation of test results., Methods: Prospective study conducted from December 2020 to February 2021 in acute symptomatic participants presenting in three walk-in centres in the province of Québec., Results: Valid paired samples were obtained from 2,372 participants. A positive result on either the IDN or the standard-of-care nucleic acid amplification test (SOC-NAAT) was obtained in 423 participants (prevalence of 17.8%). Overall sensitivity of IDN and SOC-NAAT were 96.4% (95% CI: 94.2-98.0%) and 99.1% (95% CI: 97.6-99.8), respectively; negative predictive values were 99.2% (95% CI: 98.7-99.6%) and 99.8% (95% CI: 99.5-100%), respectively. Turnaround time for positive results was significantly faster on IDN., Conclusion: In our experience, IDN use in symptomatic individuals in walk-in centres is a reliable sensitive alternative to SOC-NAAT without the need for subsequent confirmation of negative results. Such deployment can accelerate contact tracing, reduce the burden on laboratories and increase access to testing., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None.

Honeybees have been used in Europe as environmental bioindicators for heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). However, their potential has been little explored in North America, especially between environments which have similar pollution levels. Many urban residents and stakeholders are concerned with air quality, mainly in regard to gradients of exposure to industrial pollution between deprived and privileged subpopulation. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the use of honeybees as bioindicators to assess exposure to heavy metals and PAHs in Québec City, Canada, in different socioeconomic districts of Quebec City (deprivation index). Honeybees were sampled over a 5-month period (May to September) at six locations distributed in two urban areas that are distinct geomorphologically and socioeconomically (lower town socio-economically deprived and upper town socioeconomically privileged) and two control rural locations. Six PAHs were analyzed by ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC), while four heavy metals were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Arsenic was the only measured pollutant that showed a significant gradient of exposure between rural and urban environments, but also between the two urban areas. Furthermore, we were able to detect significant differences at certain sampling times for heavy metals and PAHs. Overall, the results show that honeybees are sensitive enough to detect differences between the differential urban environments of a city presumed to have similar pollution levels and therefore could be used when potential socio-environmental inequalities are present., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.)

During the summer of 2012, a major Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 outbreak occurred in Quebec City, Canada, which caused 182 declared cases of Legionnaire's disease and included 13 fatalities. Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 isolates from 23 patients as well as from 32 cooling towers located in the vicinity of the outbreak were recovered for analysis. In addition, 6 isolates from the 1996 Quebec City outbreak and 4 isolates from patients unrelated to both outbreaks were added to allow comparison. We characterized the isolates using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, sequence-based typing, and whole genome sequencing. The comparison of patients-isolated strains to cooling tower isolates allowed the identification of the tower that was the source of the outbreak. Legionella pneumophila strain Quebec 2012 was identified as a ST-62 by sequence-based typing methodology. Two new Legionellaceae plasmids were found only in the epidemic strain. The LVH type IV secretion system was found in the 2012 outbreak isolates but not in the ones from the 1996 outbreak and only in half of the contemporary human isolates. The epidemic strains replicated more efficiently and were more cytotoxic to human macrophages than the environmental strains tested. At least four Icm/Dot effectors in the epidemic strains were absent in the environmental strains suggesting that some effectors could impact the intracellular replication in human macrophages. Sequence-based typing and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis combined with whole genome sequencing allowed the identification and the analysis of the causative strain including its likely environmental source.