What caregivers believe affected the quality of implementation of asthma-related family management models (AFMM) during COVID-19: A phenomenological qualitative study.

PURPOSE: The recurrent COVID-19 epidemic in China has disrupted many aspects of daily life for children with asthma and their caregivers, while negatively impacting their asthma family management models (AFMM). This phenomenological qualitative study identifies what affects the quality of implementation of AFMM in this population and outlines potential coping strategies for the caregivers. METHODS: We used purposive sampling to conduct semistructured interviews with primary caregivers of school-age children with asthma from community healthcare centers (CHCs), which focused on understanding what factors influenced caregivers' implementation of AFMM during quarantine. The Colaizzi seven-step method was used to independently code and categorize the transcript and to generate themes and identify associated key subthemes. RESULTS: Twenty-four caregivers were interviewed, and they provided greater insight into barriers and motivators to implement AFMM. The three themes and nine relevant subthemes generated, (a) the "individual-family" internal-level factors: weak health literacy and beliefs, quietly changing family relationships, the dramatic increase in the care burden, gradual adjustment of negative psychology; (b) the "hospital-community" external-level factors: the endless power of peer support, strict community quarantine policy; and (c) the "health system-public" social-level factors: the enormous potential of internet-based telemedicine, improved public awareness of prevention, government's prompt assistance. CONCLUSIONS: This qualitative study reveals that the quality of AFMM implementation during pandemic is impacted by three different levels. Therefore, a targeted and comprehensive caring model that provides caregivers with the necessary coping strategies around these three levels is needed to achieve better asthma control outcomes.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on asthma control among children: a qualitative study from caregivers' perspectives and experiences.

OBJECTIVES: To understand the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on asthma control in children based on caregivers' perspectives and experiences. DESIGN: This was a qualitative study deploying face-to-face, semistructured interviews. Thematic analysis was carried out to analyse the data. SETTING: Paediatric respiratory clinics in three tertiary hospitals. PARTICIPANTS: 16 caregivers providing unpaid asthma-related care and assistance to children under 14 years who had been diagnosed with asthma for more than 1 year and were not only treated with short-acting ß2-agonists. RESULTS: Six main themes were identified: (1) improved asthma control; (2) decreased willingness to seek medical care driven by fear; (3) increased adherence due to enhanced awareness of asthma control; (4) coping strategies for changes caused by COVID-19; (5) a new opportunity and (6) managing new challenges in asthma control. CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 outbreak and the measures in response to it have had significant impacts on asthma control among children. Children with asthma are advised to continue good asthma management, take their prescribed asthma medications as normal, wash their hands regularly and wear face masks. Regularly supported self-management and remote consultations should be provided during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, supporting people financially, providing continued medical support and alleviating any fear and anxiety should be considered. We anticipate that our findings will inform health promotion interventions.

Epitaxial Growth and Integration of Insulating Metal-Organic Frameworks in Electrochemistry.

With tunable pore size and rich active metal centers, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been regarded as the one of the promising materials for catalysis. Prospectively, employing MOFs in electrochemistry would notably broaden the scope of electrocatalysis. However, this application is largely hindered by MOFs' conventionally poor electrical conductivity. Integrating MOFs without compromising their crystalline superiority holds a grand challenge to unveil their pristine electrocatalytic properties. In this work, we introduce an epitaxial growth strategy to accomplish the efficient integration of the insulating MOFs into electrochemistry. Particularly, with pristine-graphene-templated growth, the two-dimensional (2D) single-crystal MOF possesses a large lateral size of ∼23 µm and high aspect ratio up to ∼1500 and exhibits a significant electrochemical enhancement, with a charge transfer resistance of ∼200 ohm and a 30 mA cm-2 current density at only 0.53 V versus a reversible hydrogen electrode. The epitaxial strategy could be further applied to other 2D substrates, such as MoS2. This MOF/graphene 2D architecture sheds light on integrating insulating MOFs into electrochemical applications.

Chemical and Bandgap Engineering in Monolayer Hexagonal Boron Nitride.

Monolayer hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) possesses a wide bandgap of ~6 eV. Trimming down the bandgap is technically attractive, yet poses remarkable challenges in chemistry. One strategy is to topological reform the h-BN's hexagonal structure, which involves defects or grain boundaries (GBs) engineering in the basal plane. The other way is to invite foreign atoms, such as carbon, to forge bizarre hybrid structures like hetero-junctions or semiconducting h-BNC materials. Here we successfully developed a general chemical method to synthesize these different h-BN derivatives, showcasing how the chemical structure can be manipulated with or without a graphene precursor, and the bandgap be tuned to ~2 eV, only one third of the pristine one's.