Investigating Beliefs in Anti-Vax Conspiracy Theories among Medical Students.

While the doctors' role in immunization is essential, their lack of knowledge or vaccine hesitancy may affect their ability to communicate effectively and educate patients about vaccination, vaccine hesitancy, and vaccine conspiracy theories. This, in turn, may hinder health policy aimed at fighting infectious diseases. Vaccine hesitancy is prevalent not only among the general population but also among healthcare workers; thus, this study is aimed at assessing future doctors' attitudes towards anti-vax conspiracy theories. A total of 441 medical students at Poznan University of Medical Sciences completed a web-based survey designed to explore their attitudes toward the six most prevalent anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. The survey showed that although over 97% of future doctors support vaccinations as an effective form of fighting infectious diseases, and 80% did not believe in any anti-vax conspiracy theory, a significant fraction of 20% of medical students either believed in at least one such theory or were unsure. It has also shown that male and younger students who had not received a flu vaccination and defined themselves as politically right-wing or conservative and religious were more likely to believe in anti-vax conspiracy theories. Our data suggest that, in order to overcome medical students' ambivalent attitudes towards anti-vax conspiracy theories, they should receive more education about the importance of vaccination in preventing disease and about effective ways to combat vaccine hesitancy and anti-vax conspiracy theories.

Exploring COVID-19 conspiracy theories: education, religiosity, trust in scientists, and political orientation in 26 European countries.

The COVID-19 virus disseminated globally at an accelerated pace, culminating in a worldwide pandemic; it engendered a proliferation of spurious information and a plethora of misinformation and conspiracy theories (CTs). While many factors contributing to the propensity for embracing conspiracy ideation have been delineated, the foremost determinant influencing individuals' proclivity towards CT endorsement appears to be their level of educational attainment. This research aimed to assess the moderating effect of religiosity, trust in scientists, and political orientation on the impact of education level on people's belief in COVID-19-related CTs in Europe by considering both individual-level and country-level contextual covariates of CT. We analysed data from the newest European Social Survey (ESS10) round conducted between September 2020 and September 2022 in 26 countries. We found religiosity weakens, and trust in scientists strengthens the effect of education, while the impact of political orientation is not straightforward. The result also demonstrates a significant negative correlation between the aggregate country-level data of the respondents supporting CTs and the level of vaccination and cumulative excess deaths in Europe. We concluded with a recommendation that planning effective public health strategies and campaigns are insufficient when based solely on people's education, as individuals' beliefs moderate the effect of education.

Between Autonomy and Paternalism: Attitudes of Nursing Personnel Towards Jehovah's Witnesses' Refusal of Blood Transfusion.

Objectives: The study describes the attitudes of Polish nursing personnel towards Jehovah's Witnesses' (JWs') refusal to receive blood and blood products. Methods: We developed an online survey assessing nurses' knowledge and attitudes towards JWs' refusal of blood transfusion in a life-threatening condition. It also examined nurses' attitudes towards ethical and legal issues associated with JWs' refusal of blood transfusions. These questions were explored using a sample of 202 Polish nurses. Results: Nurses' knowledge of JWs' stance towards blood transfusions is inadequate and they tended to be ill-disposed towards JWs' refusal of blood transfusions. Although most nurses respected adult JW patients' autonomy and supported their right to refuse blood, in the case of JW children they are guided by paternalism. Nurses' attitudes were affected by whether they had children, whether they declared themselves religious, their level of education and prior experience with patients who had refused a blood transfusion. Conclusion: Since most nurses felt unprepared to care for JW patients, this study reveals an urgent need to train nurses in transcultural nursing and increase nurses' cultural competencies, and that this should be incorporated into medical curricula .

Gender and socioeconomic patterning of self-reported sleep problems across European countries.

BACKGROUND: Sleep problems mark an important part of the research into the physical health and mental well-being of modern societies. Although there are many studies on restless sleep, they are dominated by approaches that either focus on health-related issues or social factors (such as socioeconomic status). In this report, we address both types of determinants. This study replicates the analysis for the UK that was carried out by Arber et al. (Gender and socio-economic patterning of self-reported sleep problems in Britain. Soc Sci Med 2009;68:281-9). However, this replication, based on European Social Survey data, covers 20 European countries. METHODS: Data are taken from the European Social Survey Round 7 from 2014 (N = 32 704). A multilevel logistic regression was used to assess the impact of sociodemographic, socioeconomic and health-related issues on reported restless sleeping. RESULTS: The results show that the influence of socioeconomic status has a secondary effect on sleep problems, health-related problems and depression. In addition, the study shows that individual-level, rather than country-level, factors have a major impact on restless sleep. CONCLUSIONS: We have replicated all the findings of Arber et al. (Gender and socio-economic patterning of self-reported sleep problems in Britain. Soc Sci Med 2009;68:281-9) and confirmed the secondary nature of socioeconomic status factors to health and depression based on 20 European countries.

Place Attachment and Views on Tree Management.

Few studies have investigated relational environmental views of different stakeholder groups. In this study, we investigated how residents of rural and urban municipalities view the management of trees (who should decide about trees' removal - the landowner, or the municipality), which provides a various range of ecosystem services and the extent that place attachment as a relational variable affects these views. The analysis was based on 231 questionnaires conducted in two Polish municipalities: one rural (Nysa) and one urban (Racibórz). Data were analyzed using statistical methods including logistic regression models for analyzing factors impacting the main research question. Our investigation showed that both place attachment involving public good sentiments and the perception of ecosystem services provided by trees, that are related to private interests significantly impacted views on tree management. In rural areas the opinion, that the municipality should decide to remove trees was positively associated with a place attachment. For residents of urban areas (Racibórz), the strength of place attachment was not related to the perception of tree removal, but it was related to the perception of trees' cultural benefits. We argue that considering psychological variables related to the tree management issues could help avoid conflicts.