Moral injury and psychological resilience among healthcare professionals amid COVID-19 pandemic.

Objectives: The present research studied moral injury and psychological resilience in healthcare professionals amid COVID-19 pandemic. Relationship between moral injury and resilience was explored in addition to finding the difference in study variables based on socio-demographics factors. Methods: This cross-sectional research was carried out from August 2020 to January 2021. A sample of 108 healthcare professionals including doctors, nurses, and paramedical staff was collected through purposive sampling technique. Data was gathered through face-to-face survey method and online forum using psychometrically sound tools. Results: Findings revealed that more than two third of the sample (69.44%) has high level of moral injury which is clinically significant while only 30.56% fall within normal range. Moral injury has significant positive correlation with number of work hours (p < .05) whereas negative correlation with resilience (p < .01) and years of experience (p < .05). Women and health care professionals belonging to psychiatry department have reported to experience significantly high level of moral injury (p < .01). Conclusion: The findings of the study are helpful for stakeholders of health care system to better understand and prepare for the situations that brings moral injury and challenge psychological resilience particularly in times of pandemic, humanitarian crisis, or natural disasters.

Daughter-to-Father Attachment Style and Emerging Adult Daughter's Psychological Well-Being: Mediating Role of Interpersonal Communication Motives.

This study investigated insecure attachment of emerging adult daughters with their fathers and how it affects daughter's psychological well-being, with interpersonal communication motives taken as mediating variables. A sample of daughters (N = 243) ranging from 18 to 25 years was collected through purposive sampling from Islamabad and Rawalpindi. For this cross-sectional study, data were collected using psychometrically sound tools along with a demographic data sheet. Results revealed that anxiety and avoidance attachment style negatively correlate to young adult daughters' psychological well-being as hypothesized. Moreover, this relationship is partially mediated by interpersonal communication motives. Among communication motives, affection motive is a stronger predictor of psychological well-being scores (ß = .31, p < .01). Other motives, i.e., pleasure, relaxation, inclusion, escape, and control did not show significant results in mediation. These findings have practical implications for parents, mental health professionals, and family counselors.

Vaccination willingness among undergraduates: Role of conspiracy mentality and belief in Covid-19 vaccine conspiracies.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate willingness to vaccination, conspiracy mentality, and belief in vaccine conspiracies among undergraduate students as well as the level of adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions during the coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic. METHODS: The cross-sectional study was conducted from January to June, 2021, and comprised undergraduate students from Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Data was gathered using the General Conspiracy Mentality Scale and the Belief in Vaccine Conspiracies Scale. Willingness for vaccination and degree of adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions was measured on a 5-point rating scale. Data was analysed using SPSS 26. RESULTS: Of the 300 subjects, 154 were males and 146 were females. The overall mean age of the sample was (23.47 ±2.17). A sample of 121(40.33%) respondents believed in vaccine conspiracies, while only 83(27.66%) showed disagreement. High scores on conspiracy mentality (p<0.020) and belief in vaccine conspiracies (p<0.006) were associated with little adherence to behavioural recommendations for coronavirus disease-2019. High scorers on conspiracy mentality (p<0.006) and belief in vaccine conspiracies (p<0.004) had less willingness for vaccination. There was no significant difference in the conspiracy mentality and belief in vaccine conspiracies with reference to gender (p>0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Medical practitioners and healthcare organisations need to understand the connection between belief in vaccine conspiracies and related vaccine resistance and noncompliance with behavioural recommendations in the face of a pandemic.

Urdu text in natural scene images: a new dataset and preliminary text detection.

Text detection in natural scene images for content analysis is an interesting task. The research community has seen some great developments for English/Mandarin text detection. However, Urdu text extraction in natural scene images is a task not well addressed. In this work, firstly, a new dataset is introduced for Urdu text in natural scene images. The dataset comprises of 500 standalone images acquired from real scenes. Secondly, the channel enhanced Maximally Stable Extremal Region (MSER) method is applied to extract Urdu text regions as candidates in an image. Two-stage filtering mechanism is applied to eliminate non-candidate regions. In the first stage, text and noise are classified based on their geometric properties. In the second stage, a support vector machine classifier is trained to discard non-text candidate regions. After this, text candidate regions are linked using centroid-based vertical and horizontal distances. Text lines are further analyzed by a different classifier based on HOG features to remove non-text regions. Extensive experimentation is performed on the locally developed dataset to evaluate the performance. The experimental results show good performance on test set images. The dataset will be made available for research use. To the best of our knowledge, the work is the first of its kind for the Urdu language and would provide a good dataset for free research use and serve as a baseline performance on the task of Urdu text extraction.

Alleviation of chromium toxicity in maize by Fe fortification and chromium tolerant ACC deaminase producing plant growth promoting rhizobacteria.

Chromium (Cr) is becoming a potential pollutant with the passage of time. Higher intake of Cr does not only affect the productivity of crops, but also the quality of food produced in Cr polluted soils. In the past, foliar application of Fe is widely studied regarding their potential to alleviate Cr toxicity. However, limited information is documented regarding the combined use of PGPR and foliar Fe. Therefore, the current study was conducted to screen Cr tolerant PGPR and examine effect of foliar Fe with and without Cr tolerant PGPR under Cr toxicity (50 and 100 mg kg-1) in maize (Zea mays) production. Out of 15, two Cr tolerant PGPR were screened, identified (Agrobacterium fabrum and Leclercia adecarboxylata) and inoculated with 500 µM Fe. Results confirmed that Agrobacterium fabrum + 500 µM Fe performed significantly best in improving dry weight of roots and shoot, plant height, roots and shoot length and plant leaves in maize under Cr toxicity. A significant increase in chlorophyll a (51.5%), b (55.1%) and total (32.5%) validated the effectiveness of A. fabrum + 500 µM Fe to alleviate Cr toxicity. Improvement in intake of N (64.7%), P (70.0 and 183.3%), K (53.8% and 3.40-fold) in leaves and N (25.6 and 122.2%), P (25.6 and 122.2%), K (33.3% and 97.3%) in roots of maize at Cr50 and Cr100 confirmed that combined application of A. fabrum with 500 µM Fe is a more efficacious approach for alleviation of Cr toxicity and fortification of Fe comparative to sole foliar application of 500 µM Fe.

Depression and Anxiety among International Medical Students in Germany: The Predictive Role of Coping Styles.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the predictive role of dispositional coping styles in determining the level of depression and anxiety among international medical students in Germany. METHODS: The cross-sectional study was conducted in Germany from September 2016 to February 2017 and comprised international students studying medicine in Germany. Data were collected through an electronic survey using reliable instruments, including Major Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory, Problem-Focussed Styles of Coping Inventory, and a demographic sheet. RESULTS: Of the 122 subjects, 76(62%) were females. The overall mean age was 24.92±3.58 years. In terms of region, Europe was represented by 87(71.3%) of the total. Reflective coping was found to be a health-promoting coping style predicting a low level of depression and anxiety among international medical students. Suppressive and reactive coping were recognised to be dysfunctional since these styles turned out to be relatively stronger predictors of a high degree of depression as well as anxiety. Overall, 13(10%) subjects had moderate depression and 19(16%) were experiencing severe depression. The anxiety symptoms were seen in 32(26%) subjects at moderate level and 28(23%) had severe level of anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: Counsellors need to address depression and anxiety symptoms of international medical students in Germany..

Psychological Reactions, Social Support, and Coping Styles in Pakistani Female Burn Survivors.

This study was aimed to explore the level of psychological distress and posttraumatic stress among female burn survivors in Pakistan. It was also intended to study the kind of social support available to these burn survivors in a society where women right violation is common. The sample consisted of 35 female burn victims selected from two hospitals. General Health Questionnaire, posttraumatic stress disorder Checklist-Specific, and Social Support Scale were used to measure study variables in addition to a short open-ended questionnaire to identify coping strategies of these burn survivors. Consistent with the hypothesis, results found a high level of psychological reaction among female burn survivors. About one-quarter of the sample (23%) presented severe symptoms of psychological distress whereas 20% of the sample reported to experience severe posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. There was a significant inverse relationship between psychological reactions and social support as hypothesized. Majority of female burn victims found to use emotion-focused coping (EFC) mainly including prayers, emotional discourse, and using drugs. The findings of the study would be helpful to plastic surgeons, dermatologists, psychologists, and social workers to understand the patient's psychological reactions, their copying styles, and the role of social support in the rehabilitation program for these survivors.