Search

Background: Mental health programs in the workplace have gained increasing attention as organizations strive to support employee well-being. However, the effectiveness and reception of these initiatives from the employee perspective still need to be studied., Methods: A qualitative study used 30 semi-structured interviews with individuals from large insurance companies in Portugal. It focused on their perceptions of workplace mental health programs, stress, and time management training. The participants ranged in age from 25 to 55 years (average 38), with a slightly more significant proportion of women, reflecting the gender distribution in the Portuguese insurance sector. The sample had an average of 10 years of industry experience, from entry-level to middle-management roles. Thematic analysis with an audit trail and thick description was used to analyse data., Results: The findings revealed a significant disconnect between the intended benefits of these programs and employee experiences. Many viewed the initiatives as primarily beneficial for the company's image rather than employee well-being. A common concern was that workload remained unchanged after training, leading employees to prioritize work over program participation. Additional key findings included generational differences in program perception, with younger employees expressing more frustration over the lack of follow-through. Most participants reported that initiatives failed to address the root causes of stress. More than half of the interviewees felt a lingering stigma around discussing mental health at work, whereas a majority mentioned increased stress due to rapid industry digitalization. Notably, many participants perceived a significant gap between upper management's promotion of mental health initiatives and their understanding of daily employee challenges., Conclusions: These findings highlight a critical gap between implementing workplace mental health programs and their perceived value among employees. Organizations need to reevaluate their mental health initiatives to ensure that they provide tangible benefits and address underlying workplace stressors. Future research should explore strategies to better align mental health programs with the insurance sector's employee needs and work realities., Competing Interests: Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The Internal Review Board of Portucalense University reviewed and approved the study protocol. The board determined the study’s compliance with ethical standards, given the non-sensitive nature of the information collected and the carefully constructed interview guide. All participants provided informed written consent prior to their involvement in the study. The research was conducted in full accordance with the ethical research practices of REMIT and adhered to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki, ensuring the protection of participants’ rights and well-being throughout the study. Consent for publication: Not Applicable – This manuscript contains no person’s data. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

Different low-cost approaches based on fiber specklegram sensors are employed to measure the physiological activity of patients lying in bed. This study is conducted over 20 volunteers to measure the movement and heart rate (HR) using two different sensor designs placed at two different bed locations. Three different processing methods are developed and tested in order to extract useful information from the measured data. The results suggest that a stretched fiber optic configuration under the head of the person lying in bed is the optimal configuration to detect HR and motion, nonetheless the other tested possibilities also exhibit remarkably good performances. On the other hand, the three proposed processing methods also achieve a good precision in the HR detection. The sensor implementation is simple, not requiring any special conditions, and it provides robust performance. This leads to the conclusion that fiber specklegram technology is a feasible method to be used in real situations for heartbeat and movement monitoring.

Objective: Today, the most important demographic change taking place is the rapid aging of the population. While this phenomenon is having a growing and profound impact on all spheres of society, its greatest impact is in the health area, affecting all levels of health care and leading to the need for new resources and new structures. Out of that, in many countries have come different alternatives as well as in-patient, outpatient, and in-home programs that are geared toward improving health care and helping set priorities. One of these new initiatives is home hospitalization, or home health care. One objective of this study was to describe and analyze the characteristics of a population in Spain that was assisted through home hospitalization (HH). Another objective of the study was to comment on the role that HH can play as a mechanism for integration and coordination between health care levels, in the face of the challenges occurring with the reorganization of health care policies and programs, especially those directed at the elderly., Methods: A retrospective descriptive study was done of patients assisted through HH in Sanitary Area 9 of the Autonomous Community of Valencia, which is on the eastern coast of Spain. The area's population was 321,361, of whom 60,079 (18.7%) were 60 or older, including 43,044 (13.4%) who were 65 or older. A descriptive study of the analyzed variables was done, with the mean and standard deviation being computed for quantitative variables, and the absolute and relative frequencies (percentages) being calculated for the qualitative variables., Results: Of the patients studied, 78% of them were 65 or older, with an average age of 73 years. They were predominantly women. Of the total group, 72% of them had chronic diseases, and 67% had at least one associated secondary diagnosis. There was an important problem of communication between the two principal levels of care, primary care and hospital care, which obviously had an impact on the patients and on the quality and effectiveness of their health care. Furthermore, it was found that HH finds its greatest utility with and is an effective tool for an adult or elderly population that has multiple chronic degenerative or terminal diseases., Conclusions: The results of this study highlight the need to create or strengthen channels and mechanisms for interinstitutional communication that will guarantee continuity of care. The ongoing, effective care of the health and well-being of elderly persons requires different levels of health interventions. This care should be comprehensive, adequate, integrated, of high quality, humanized, timely, and coordinated between the two principal levels of health care. In the final analysis, these factors will determine the quality of the health care for geriatric patients and the capacity to solve their health problems.

Objective: To establish the different forms that the concept of home care has taken over time as a modality for providing health care, so as to contribute to the debate on the circumstances affecting health care management in the face of future challenges., Methods: The literature is reviewed on home care as a method for delivering health care, by researching publications indexed during the period of 1995-2000 in three medical bibliographical databases: MEDLINE, LILACS (Latin American and Caribean Health Sciences) and the Indice Médico Español (Spanish Medical Index)., Results: Home hospitalization has developed differently over time in various countries, with an assortment of models for this type of care, each with its respective advantages and disadvantages., Conclusions: There are some criteria and proposals that could provide a framework for home care that is innovative, effective, and of high quality. Home care could help in the design and creation of a consensus on an organizational and financing model that fits in harmoniously between primary care and care in a hospital.