Abstract
Background
Postmortem examination is the gold standard for establishing the cause of death. Minimally Invasive Tissue Sampling (MITS) of organs is a novel approach that can be used as an ...alternative to postmortem examination. In this study, the community perceptions in two states in South India towards neonatal postmortem and the acceptance towards the MITS technique is studied.
Methods
In-depth interviews were conducted among the participants from Kerala and Karnataka to understand the perception towards postmortem and the acceptance of the novel MITS technique. The interviews were audio recorded, and a thematic analysis was done to identify the overarching themes and codes.
Results
The knowledge and attitude of participants on conventional and MITS postmortem techniques, reasons for refusal, and the need for raising awareness were identified in the study. Participants favored the MITS techniques as it was less disfiguring and less time-consuming. The major concerns for refusal of conventional postmortem were that the procedure was disfiguring, time-consuming, and caused emotional stress to the parents.
Conclusions
Participants favored the MITS approach over conventional postmortem as it caused less disfigurement and was conducive to the religious practice of burial of the body.
The tradition of intergenerational care and support exchanges in Indian families is assumed to be disturbed because of changes in family structure brought on by modern life, which is mainly based on ...studies investigating experiences of older adults regarding the impact of socio-economic change on their care arrangement. However, there is a large gap in understanding the experiences of adult children from a larger relational perspective, more than just care provision to their older relatives. Drawing on 26 in-depth interviews with adult children living in modern and traditional living arrangements from South India, the study explores their experiences with their parents with regard to reciprocity of care and support, the challenges they experience and strategies they adopt to overcome those challenges. The analysis shows adult children perceive the increased demands of modern work life and their older kin's preferences to be heard, lack of flexibility and related extra domestic work and costs, do cause a bigger burden for them in both living arrangements. However, adult children strive to uphold the traditional values of caring for their older kin and sharing emotional bonding with them. This inspiration helps them to employ strategies to accept their older relatives as they are, focus their attention on the benefits they receive from them and distribute care tasks with other relatives to overcome the challenges.
Public health initiatives, including lockdowns to reduce the spread of COVID-19, have resulted in societal stressors like loneliness, job loss, and economic collapse linked to worsening mental health ...outcomes, such as depression, anxiety, and coping-related substance use. The various psychosocial stressors caused by the pandemic have potentially led to the increased use of substances across the globe, particularly among emerging adults. The current study summarises the literature on substance use among emerging adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. The terms “coronavirus”, “COVID-19”, “substance use”, “substance abuse”, “drug use”, drug abuse”, “emerging adults”, and “young adults” were all used in different combinations throughout the search, using the Scopus, PubMed, and JSTOR databases. Using this method, a total of 28 English-language citations published between 2020 and 2023 were obtained. Following a study of the articles mentioned above, 16 papers were removed. The remaining 12 papers were included in this review. Even though substance use dropped when COVID-19 lockdowns began, it rose when restrictions were removed, particularly among those with prior substance use. Studies related to mental health need to assess substance use, as many emerging adults use substances to cope with distress, including isolation and loneliness, which are part of the current mental health crisis among emerging adults.
•Sense of belongingness and usefulness with their family and outside impacts older adults’ well-being•Traditional familial values of elderly care is central to joint and nuclear families.•Young ...relatives’ visible efforts to stay in contact and practical support offer a sense of belongingness to older adults.•Care and support provision, and participation in family decision-making process helped older adults feel a renewed meaning.•Social networks with non-kin offer emotional support for older adults who lost the sense of belonging with their family
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted social work researchers for whom fieldwork is the crux of data collection. Resilient as humankind is, researchers must innovate to look at society and communities ...digitally. This review paper explores e-research as an option for social researchers. It summarises and synthesizes existing literature on digital research in social work. What is e-research? What is the position of the researcher in this context? What are some of the strategies and challenges in conducting research online? The paper throws light on these questions. This review article reveals the methods that can be adapted to merge technology with research in the social work domain. It also lays out the challenges of e-research. We propose a synthesized definition of e-research in social work and conclude that there is tremendous value in using technology and doing research online if done ethically.
Tobacco use among school-going children is a significant public health concern worldwide. Studies on perception and knowledge about harmful effects of tobacco use among early adolescent children are ...limited.
To assess the knowledge, attitude, and perception of tobacco use among rural and urban school-going early adolescent children.
A cross-sectional study design was used. Using mixed method multi-stage sampling, a sample of 218 eighth grade students were selected randomly using the simple random technique from two government schools (rural and urban schools were chosen purposively), Udupi district, Karnataka. Data were collected using the questionnaire method. The Global Youth Tobacco Survey was used for the data collection. Descriptive statistics were used to express the data and Chi-square test and Fisher's exact test were used to compare the categorical variables.
More than one-third (39%) of middle school children have used tobacco in the past. About 44% of boys felt guilty about their tobacco use. About two percent tried using other forms of tobacco products. Less than 1% of them had used tobacco more than once in the past 30 days. Urban children had significantly more knowledge about the harmful effects of tobacco use (
= .001), quitting tobacco (χ
= 11.6,
= .008), and reasons for quitting tobacco use was, noticing anti-tobacco messages. More urban children think using tobacco makes boys more attractive (χ
= 9.07,
= .01) and girls more attractive (χ
= 10.80,
= .004).
The prevalence of tobacco use was 1.5% among middle-school children in the last month. Urban school children have significantly more knowledge and awareness about the harmful effects of tobacco use than rural students.
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