Background: To well control the pandemic of COVID-19, herd immunity should be achieved. However, people, especially those with better physical conditions (e.g., young adults), may not accept COVID-19 vaccines. Understanding university students' willingness or reluctance to uptake COVID-19 vaccination is important.Aim: This study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the DrVac-COVID19S, an instrument that helps assess motivations/drivers of COVID-19 vaccination uptake among university students.Research design and methods: Using convenience sampling and cross-sectional design, university students (930 from Taiwan [38.0% males] and 1,244 from Ghana [63.3% males]) completed the DrVac-COVID19S using an online survey (Taiwanese students) or paper-and-pen method (Ghanaian students). Rasch analysis was used to examine the psychometric properties of the DrVac-COVID19S.Results: All 12 items in the DrVac-COVID19S had a satisfactory fit in the Rasch models (infit MnSq=0.74 to 1.49; outfit MnSq=0.72 to 1.42). Moreover, the seven-point Likert scale used in the DrVac-COVID19S demonstrated monotonically increasing in their difficulties, which indicated the ordered category. Additionally, no differential item functioning was displayed in the DrVacCOVID-19S across Taiwanese and Ghanaian students.
Conclusions:The DrVacCOVID-19S has good psychometric features to help healthcare providers assess individuals' (especially university students) motivations or drivers to get the COVID-19 vaccination.
This systematic review and meta-analysis aggregated and examined the treatment effect of non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) (transcranial direct current stimulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation) on cognitive functions in people with traumatic brain injury (TBI). A systematic search was conducted using databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, PsycINFO, EMBASE) for studies with keywords related to non-randomized and randomized control trials of NIBS among people with TBI. Nine out of 1790 NIBS studies with 197 TBI participants (103 active vs. 94 sham) that met the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the present study were finally selected for meta-analysis using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software (version 3). Results showed that the overall effect of NIBS on cognition in people with TBI was moderately significant (g = 0.304, 95% CI = 0.055 to 0.553) with very low heterogeneity across studies (I2 = 0.000, Tau = 0.000). Specifically, significant and marginally significant moderate effect sizes were found for cognitive sub-domains including attention, memory, and executive function. The present findings suggest that NIBS is moderately effective in improving cognitive functions among people with TBI. In particular, NIBS may be used as an alternative and/or an adjunct treatment to the traditional approach in rehabilitating cognitive functions in people with TBI.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to ravage world economies, and with its recent mutations, countries worldwide are finding ways of ramping up their vaccination programmes. This cross-sectional design study, therefore, examined the predictors of COVID-19 stress and COVID-19 vaccination acceptance among adolescents in Ghana. A total of 817 participants were conveniently selected to respond to measures on fear of COVID-19, perceived stigma from COVID-19, self-stigma from COVID-19, believing COVID-19 information, COVID-19 infection prevention behaviours, COVID-19 stress, and COVID-19 vaccination acceptance. It was found that females believed COVID-19 information and accepted COVID-19 vaccination more than males did. Moreover, there were significant relationships between the majority of the COVID-19-related variables. Furthermore, fear of COVID-19, self-stigma from COVID-19, and COVID-19 infection prevention behaviours were found to be significant predictors of COVID-19 stress. Additionally, believing COVID-19 information, danger and contamination fears (a subscale of COVID-19 stress), and traumatic stress (a subscale of COVID-19 stress) were significant predictors of COVID-19 vaccination acceptance. These findings imply that different factors influence different COVID-19 variable. Therefore, careful considerations and research should be employed by health authorities and policymakers in preparing COVID-19 information to target different age groups and for different COVID-19 purposes.
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