In fall 2021, Tennessee school districts faced heightened debates over COVID-19 mitigation amid rising cases, limited vaccination availability, and widespread misinformation. School board meetings (SBMs) served as pivotal decision-making forums influencing district policies. This study investigated perceptions and misinformation regarding the COVID-19 mask mandate at SBMs held within 6 of Tennessee's largest school districts. With widespread debate over pandemic measures, including mask use in schools, understanding community sentiments is crucial for guiding public health policies.

This study aimed to investigate the viewpoints of parents or caregivers and teachers regarding COVID-19 safety protocols, particularly the mask mandate, and to identify the misinformation circulating within SBMs.

Participants' commentaries were extracted from 6 SBM recordings that were publicly uploaded to YouTube from August through September 2021. The data were examined qualitatively to capture themes related to concerns, support, and misinformation. Inductive thematic analysis was conducted using transcripts generated via Microsoft Azure speech-to-text and manually verified.

Many parents or caregivers gave personal accounts of how the pandemic had impacted them, their children, and their communities, describing significant comorbidities, adverse psychosocial impacts, mental health disorders, learning difficulties, and worsening socioeconomic and educational disparities. Six thematic domains emerged: (1) perceived effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on children, teachers, and parents or caregivers, including psychosocial distress, learning disruptions, and burnout; (2) perceived effects of mask mandates on children, particularly concerns regarding physical health and psychosocial well-being; (3) perceived government overreach and legal objections to COVID-19 mitigation mandates; (4) tensions between personal liberty, religious beliefs, and collective responsibility in masking decisions; (5) circulation of misinformation and conflicting guidance regarding mask safety and effectiveness; and (6) institutional strain, social tensions, and hostility directed toward school officials alongside educator burnout.

Perspectives on COVID-19 mitigation varied widely across meeting participants, highlighting the need for health officials and policymakers to engage in proactive health promotion strategies. Strengthening public health communication, misinformation mitigation, and institutional support for teachers will be essential to ensuring safe and effective learning environments during future public health crises.

Youth experiencing early psychosis in West Africa often face delays in accessing evidence-based treatment. Digital mental health interventions may offer an acceptable and scalable approach to improve access to early psychosis care in West Africa; however, few data exist on the experiences and perspectives of patients with early psychosis and their caregivers to inform digital intervention development.

This study aims to explore current experiences of early psychosis care, identify barriers and facilitators to in-person early psychosis care within health facilities, and identify opportunities for digital interventions to support patients with early psychosis and caregivers in Ghana.

We conducted qualitative focus group discussions among patients with early psychosis, their caregivers, and their mental health care providers recruited at Accra Psychiatric Hospital in Accra, Ghana. Trained qualitative researchers facilitated discussions using a structured qualitative interview guide, exploring current care practices for early psychosis in Ghana, barriers and facilitators to facility-based care, and perceptions of digital mental health interventions. Transcripts were translated, transcribed, and analyzed thematically using a hybrid inductive and deductive approach grounded in the theoretical framework of acceptability.

Overall, we conducted 4 focus group discussions (N=31) among 7 patients with early psychosis (median age 28, IQR 21-41 years), 6 caregivers (median age 58, IQR 29-34 years), and 18 clinicians (median age 30, IQR 29-34 years). Participants described current early psychosis care practices in Ghana, including seeking spiritual and traditional healing, the dearth of information and resources about psychosis, and the integral role of caregivers in facilitating treatment engagement and continuation (often at the cost of caregiver mental distress and burnout). Common barriers to facility-based mental health care included stigma associated with mental illness, lack of prior knowledge about early psychosis and treatment options, and practical constraints (eg, financial, logistical, and health care system limitations). Motivating factors for facility-based care included success stories from community members and strong rapport and trust in mental health clinicians. Technology (eg, mobile phones, laptops, radio, and television) was commonly used among participants in typical daily tasks, health information seeking, and stress reduction. Participants expressed support for digital tools that could deliver psychoeducation about early psychosis, support treatment adherence, and extend patient-provider communication between clinic visits.

Digital mental health interventions have the potential to complement facility-based early psychosis services in Ghana by addressing misinformation, reducing access barriers, and supporting caregiver roles. These qualitative findings inform potential integration points, content, attributes, and strengths of digital modalities that could be leveraged to support patients with early psychosis and their caregivers in Ghana.

Autistic populations are more likely to need healthcare (HC) services due to co-occurring mental health issues, including anxiety and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders. One of the most significant barriers to delivering optimal medical procedures in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is the sensory overload in HC settings. Divergent sensory processing, along with unpredictable built environments (BEs), can exacerbate stress-induced anxiety and avoidant behaviour. A growing body of systematic studies links autism-friendly BEs with positive care experiences, yet substantial gaps remain in understanding the effects on behavioural and physiological aspects of emotional responses. This systematic review aims to comprehensively evaluate the HC-BE features that impact on behavioural indicators and non-invasive biomarkers of stress, anxiety and sensory processing in patients with ASD, to establish best practices.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines will be followed. Peer-reviewed articles in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, and PsycINFO databases and Google Scholar will be searched. Studies will be selected if they apply qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods designs. Two independent reviewers will select studies at the title and abstract, and full-text screening stages. Data will be extracted by one reviewer and verified by review members using a crowdsourcing approach for quality assurance. Risk of bias will be assessed by one reviewer using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tools, The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme, and The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool, and checked by the reviewer with methodological expertise. A results-based convergent synthesis design is planned for data synthesis.

This review, which converges indicators and patient experiences, will provide a complete overarching picture of the inherent complexities associated with HC-BE and autistic individuals. The findings can inform decisions and recommendations for research and practice.

PROSPERO CRD42024562288.

This paper analyzes the role of health for refugees' integration into host countries' labor markets. We exploit the quasi-random dispersal policies of refugees across regions in Germany to analyze the causal effect of health on employment. Based on regional and temporal heterogeneity in a policy adoption that provided earlier access to healthcare services through electronic health cards (eHCs), combined with the regional availability of healthcare services and pre-migration health status, we construct instrumental variables (IVs) providing plausibly exogenous variation in refugees' post-arrival health status. Our results reveal that favorable physical health (PCS) improves refugees' employment probability. Favorable mental health (MCS) increases only females' employment rates, although this effect must be scrutinized due to weak instruments. Regarding potential mechanisms, we provide evidence that better health increases language course participation and German language proficiency for female refugees.

The return to work (RTW) process of worker absent due to common mental disorders (CMD) or musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) represents a complex challenge that involves multiple stakeholders. The aim of this study was to examine how managers perceive the factors that facilitate or hinder communication with other stakeholders during the RTW process.

This qualitative study was based on four focus groups conducted in Canada (Quebec and Ontario) with 18 managers.

Thematic analysis identified five themes related to facilitators and seven themes related to communication obstacles. Among the main facilitators, trust, clarity, and collaboration emerged as key elements that support effective coordination and the development of shared solutions. Obstacles, on the other hand, included distrust, ambiguity, and fragmentation, which can compromise the success of the process and increase the risk of tensions or relapses. The manager emerges as a bridging figure, central to the design of workplace accommodations, but whose role depends on the quality of relationships with the employee, colleagues, and other organizational stakeholders, as well as on the institutional support received.

The findings highlight that strengthening inter-stakeholder communication not only fosters the sustainable reintegration of employees with health conditions but also contributes to the development of more inclusive and resilient organizational environments.

Common mental disorders are a leading cause of work disability and long-term income protection claims in Australia. Although recovery-oriented approaches are increasingly embedded in mental health care, their relevance to return-to-work within disability-based insurance systems remains underexplored. This study explored the mental health recovery-related return-to-work experiences of people with common mental disorders engaged with Australia's income protection insurance system.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 adults who had sustained their return-to-work for at least six months following a common mental disorder-related income protection claim. Data collection and analysis occurred iteratively, and data were analysed inductively using constant comparative analysis.

Participants' recovery-related return-to-work experiences comprised three overarching processes: (1) an internal and personal process of growth; (2) negotiating and navigating workplace environments and roles; and (3) accessing and engaging with helpful supports. These processes were shaped by (4) broader contextual influences.

Findings indicate that recovery constructs, widely used in mental health service contexts, also resonate within this specific return-to-work context. However, recovery-related return-to-work is shaped not only by individual recovery processes but also by workplace conditions, relational supports, and broader contextual influences such as financial circumstances and stigma. Supporting sustainable return-to-work for people living with common mental disorders may therefore require approaches that integrate recovery-oriented principles into workplace and system-level practices. Further exploration is needed to understand system-level barriers and enablers influencing the income protection return-to-work workforce's ability to adopt the recovery-oriented supports and practices highlighted by participants.

Cancer negatively affects patients' physical status as well as their mental health, increasing the burden of family members and caregivers as well. Thus, the screening of psychological and cognitive functioning is key for the referral to mental health specialists.

Identify available and validated screening tools to assess psychological, psychosocial and cognitive impairment in cancer patients (adults and children), caregivers and family members.

An umbrella review was conducted according to PRISMA guidelines. The search strategy was applied to five databases. Reviewers screened titles/abstracts, and the articles included in this initial phase were retrieved for full-text assessment. All conflicts during the screening phase were discussed, and a third reviewer was consulted if discrepancies were not solved. A narrative synthesis and tabulated summaries of results were conducted.

A total of 2304 records were initially identified through systematic searches. Following screening and eligibility assessment, 67 systematic reviews were included. Across the included reviews, 586 different tools were identified and classified into nine thematic domains: (1) Anxiety and Depression, (2) General Mental Disorders, (3) Distress and Fear of Cancer Recurrence, (4) Body Image, Sexuality, and Self-Perception, (5) Caregiving and Social Impact, (6) Cognitive Functioning, (7) Coping Assessment, (8) Unmet Needs, and (9) Other miscellaneous constructs.

A wide variety of mental health screening tools are available, covering key psychosocial and cognitive aspects relevant to cancer care. Although most instruments were not specifically developed for oncological populations, many have been validated in this context and appear to perform adequately.