The findings can inform future research and practice on both individual and societal levels:
During times of uncertainty, mental health practitioners should actively educate their clients about the potential consequences of excessive health information-seeking. This can include behavioural interventions, such as controlled/limited exposure to news and social media at specific times of day and/or breaks from information overload.
Moreover, the study also supports the need to promote social media literacy skills to help young people and adults critically evaluate the information they encounter and discern credible sources vs. misinformation.
Practitioners can also encourage individuals to nurture their social support networks, as well as their self-care routines. Positive interactions can limit and counterbalance the negative impact of excessive information-seeking.
Evidence surveillance was guided by practical considerations of efficiency and sustainability. A single PubMed search covering all guideline topics, limited to systematic reviews and randomised trials, is run monthly. The search retrieves about 400 records a month of which a sixth are triaged to the guideline panels for further consideration. Evaluations with Epistemonikos and the Cochrane Stroke Trials Register demonstrated the robustness of adopting this more restrictive approach. Collaborating with the guideline team in designing, implementing and evaluating the surveillance is essential for optimising the approach.
Evaluation using two widely accepted tools shows that most websites related to COVID-19 are reliable and useful for physicians, researchers and the public.
Inspired by BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs the Libraries at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals ran an initiative called Castaway Books. It's worth looking at their experience - engagement started well, but tailed off later. Keep this as evidence in case we want to trial something similar?
The Core Clinical Journals (CCJ) list, produced by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), has been used by clinicians and librarians for half a century for two main purposes: narrowing a literature search to clinically useful journals and identifying high priority titles for library collections. After documentation of low usage of the existing CCJ, a review was undertaken to assess current validity, followed by an update to current clinical needs.
Two hundred thirty-two students and residents responded. Most preferred electronic format for reading a few pages, but print for entire books. Respondents preferred ebooks because they were immediately available, searchable and could be used on the go, and print books because they strained users' eyes less, facilitated absorption of the text and could be held in users’ hands. The location of respondents and year of study had little effect on responses.
To help address the well-being of the campus and contribute to empathy building amongst students pursuing careers as healthcare providers, an academic health sciences library built a graphic novel collection focused on comics that discuss medical conditions and health-related topics. The collection contains the experiences of patients, providers, and caregivers. The reader-friendly format of graphic novels provides an easy entry point for discussing empathy with health professions faculty and students. The collection has been used in the classroom during library instruction sessions, with the idea of integrating it within the curriculum.