Public health teams need to understand how the public responds to vaccination messages in a pandemic or epidemic to inform successful campaigns encouraging the uptake of new vaccines as they become available. A rapid systematic review was performed by searching PsycINFO, MEDLINE, healthevidence.org, OSF Preprints and PsyArXiv Preprints in May 2020 for studies including at least one health message promoting vaccine uptake of airborne-, droplet- and fomite-spread viruses. Included studies were assessed for quality using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) or the Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR), and for patient and public involvement (PPI) in the research. Thirty-five articles were included. Most reported messages for seasonal influenza (n = 11; 31%) or H1N1 (n = 11; 31%). Evidence from moderate to high quality studies for improving vaccine uptake included providing information about virus risks and vaccination safety, as well as addressing vaccine misunderstandings, offering vaccination reminders, including vaccination clinic details, and delivering mixed media campaigns across hospitals or communities. Behavioural influences (beliefs and intentions) were improved when: shorter, risk-reducing or relative risk framing messages were used; the benefits of vaccination to society were emphasised; and beliefs about capability and concerns among target populations (e.g., vaccine safety) were addressed. Clear, credible, messages in a language target groups can understand were associated with higher acceptability. Two studies (6%) described PPI in the research process. Future campaigns should consider the beliefs and information needs of target populations in their design, including ensuring that vaccine eligibility and availability is clear, and messages are accessible. More high quality research is needed to demonstrate the effects of messaging interventions on actual vaccine uptake.

The effects of an exploratory, home-based emotional disclosure intervention on psychological and physiological outcomes were assessed in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Patients were randomly assigned to a disclosure group (n = 19) in which they wrote/talked about traumatic personal experiences, or to a control group (n = 15) in which they wrote/talked about the events of a particular day. Participants undertook these tasks for periods of 20 minutes on 4 consecutive days. The disclosure group demonstrated increases in negative mood and objective markers of disease activity at 1 week post-intervention. However, there were significant trends for the disclosure group to demonstrate minor improvements in mood and stability in disease activity, compared with the control group. These group differences appeared to be due to deteriorations in the control group more than improvements in the disclosure group.

Background: The learning environment impacts many aspects of healthcare education, including student outcomes. Rather than being a single and fixed phenomenon, it is made up of multiple micro learning environments. The standard clinical learning environment measurement tools do not consider such diversity and may fail to adequately capture micro learning environments.Moreover, the existing tools are often long and may take a prohibitive amount of time to complete properly. This may have a negative impact on their usefulness in educational improvement strategies. In addition, there is no universal tool available which could be utilised across several healthcare student groups and placement settings.Aim: To create an evidence-based measurement tool for assessing clinical micro learning environments across several healthcare profession student groups.Methods: The measurement tool was developed through a step-wise approach: 1) literature review with iterative analysis of existing tools; 2) generation of new items via thematic analysis of student experiences; 3) a Delphi process involving healthcare educators; 4) piloting of the prototype; and 5) item reduction.Results: The literature review and experiential data from healthcare students resulted in 115 and 43 items respectively. These items were refined, leaving 75 items for the Delphi process, which produced a prototype with 57 items. This prototype was then completed by 257 students across the range of healthcare professions, with item reduction resulting in a 12-item tool.Conclusion: This paper describes a mixed methods approach to developing a brief micro learning environment measurement tool. The generated tool can be used for measuring student perceptions of clinical environments across several healthcare professions. Further cross-cultural and cross-professional validation studies are needed to support widespread use, possibly through mobile application.

Health and social care organisations globally are moving towards prevention-focussed community-based, integrated care. The success of this depends on professionals changing practice behaviours. This study explored the feasibility of applying a behavioural science approach to help staff teams from health organisations overcome psychological barriers to change and implement new models of care. An Organisational Participatory Research study was conducted with health organisations from North West England, health psychologists and health workforce education commissioners. The Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) was applied with teams of professionals seeking help to overcome barriers to practice change. A mixed-methods data collection strategy was planned, including qualitative stakeholder interview and focus groups to explore feasibility factors and quantitative pre-post questionnaires and audits measuring team practice and psychological change barriers. Qualitative data were analysed with thematic analysis; pre-post quantitative data were limited and thus analysed descriptively. Four clinical teams from paediatrics, midwifery, heart failure and older adult mental health specialties in four organisations enrolled, seeking help to move care to the community, deliver preventative healthcare tasks, or become more integrated. Eighty-one managers, medical doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, midwives and other professionals contributed data. Three teams successfully designed a BCW intervention; two implemented and evaluated this. Five feasibility themes emerged from the thematic analysis of qualitative data. Optimising the BCW in an organisational change context meant 1) qualitative over quantitative data collection, 2) making behavioural science attractive, 3) co-development and a behavioural focus, 4) effective ongoing communication and 5) support from engaged leaders. Pre-post quantitative data collected suggested some positive changes in staff practice behaviours and psychological determinants following the intervention. Behavioural science approaches such as the BCW can be optimised to support teams within health and social care organisations implementing complex new models of care. The efficacy of this approach should now be trialled.