Health Review | January – April 2023

Occupational stress can affect nurses’ mental and physical health, while negatively affecting the quality of the services provided. This study investigates the occupational stress of the nurses during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the effect of socio-demographic characteristics and nurses’ perceptions of their job, organizational commitment, and health status on the aforementioned variable. 104 nurses of a Greek regional public General Hospital participated in the cross-sectional study, in the third semester of 2022. The ASSET (A Shortened Stress Evaluation Tool) questionnaire was translated into Greek, and refined to the study aim. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.858. The independent samples t Test, ANOVA, and Bonferroni test were applied in hypothesis testing. Multiple general regression analysis was used to examine relationships between stress and other variables. The statistical significance threshold was set at 0.05. 89 women (85.6%) and 15 men (14.4%) participated in the study. The majority are aged 30-50 years (73.1%) and graduates of higher education (50.96%). 28.9% of the sample are employed in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Emergency Department, and COVID-19 ICU/Clinics. 63.5% of the nurses characterized their health condition as good and 10.6% as poor, while 43.7% said they felt less than 89% productive. Nurses' work stress ranges from moderate to high levels. There is no statistically significant difference between work stress and socio-demographic parameters. Nurses’ perceptions of the Organization, expressed as commitment, dedication, and satisfaction related to the working environment, have a statistically significant effect on work stress. Positive perceptions are related to lower levels of stress and better health and well-being. Perceived organizational support and organizational commitment predict the work stress the nurses’ experience. The current study indicates that participative leadership combined with organizational culture oriented to the development and continuous learning of the nursing staff can positively contribute to its empowerment, preparedness, and resilience in times of crisis.

The family caregiver’s role is crucial in providing care for people with dementia, but equally important is the burden accompanying such care. The purpose of this study is to assess the burden of family caregivers of elderly with dementia who live in the community and investigate the burden's determinants. The cross-sectional study was conducted using the Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI), in which the demographic details were included. The questionnaires were completed through personal interviews. Responses from a sample of 114 family caregivers of elderly with dementia living in urban and rural areas of a Greek island were examined. Statistical analyses included t-test, chisquare test, and ANOVA. Multiple regression was applied to analyze the factors affecting the caregiver’s burden. The level of statistical significance was set at 0.05. Results indicated that most of the family caregivers were women, daughters mainly, with a low income and mean age of 58 years. The mean total burden of caregivers is characterized as moderate to severe. The burden is not correlated with gender, while younger age, high income and educational level of the caregiver are related to low burden score. The multivariate analysis demonstrated that the number of caregivers’ health problems is the primary variable related to the burden score. Almost all chronic health problems are correlated with higher burden score. The duration of caregiving is proportional to the caregivers’ burden. Social support for the family and the availability of community facilities are both requested by the caregivers themselves. The findings highlighted that the design and implementation of targeted actions to create dementia-friendly communities will support family caregivers and will contribute to strengthening the institution of the family, avoiding institutionalization, and thus enhancing the health and well-being of the caregiver and the care recipient.

Digital transformation and the increasing use of the internet by consumers have led to a transition from traditional to digital marketing (Peter & Dalla Vecchia, 2020). In recent years, there has been an incremental increase in the use of digital media for corporate promotion with social media dominating organisations’ digital communication strategies. Social media require a much lower budget compared to traditional media, while at the same time they allow marketers to directly reach a large share of consumers in a more targeted way and get accurate measurements of the impact of any digital advertising campaign (Clow & Baack, 2022; Yang, 2017; Moorhead et al. 2013). Health care could not be unaffected by the rapid evolution and integration of the Internet into our lives (Chen & Wang, 2021). Social media is increasingly being used by healthcare providers for promotion, both at a generic level aiming towards awareness generation on various healthcare issues and at a brand level (Farsi, 2021). Having these in mind, one could ask whether, in the age of COVID-19, digital marketing could have contributed to awareness generation and increased vaccination coverage of the population. For young people, especially those belonging to Generation Z, the use of the internet and social networks is an innate necessity, making the role of digital marketing extremely important when it comes to creating awareness about such an important and topical issue (Marshall & Wolanskyj-Spinner, 2020).

Digital health has the potential to revolutionize and democratise healthcare delivery in ways that could not be imagined a few years ago, bringing humanity closer to the vision of universal health coverage. At the same time though, healthcare systems across the globe are facing unprecedented challenges due to the ageing population, the lack of adequate resources and emerging public health risks such as the recent pandemic. Among the many competing priorities, healthcare leaders need to accelerate digital transformation and ensure that patients and clinicians will soon be able to harness the benefits of the new technologies. One of biggest challenge remains the lack of interoperability between systems. National and EU wide initiatives have the potential to unlock some of the obstacles, however significant risks lie ahead. To address the interoperability problem in Greece, significant work has been done for the development of the Greek National eHealth Interoperability Framework (NeHIF) which could be the basis for the implementation of the Greek Digital Transformation Programme. The creation of a digital ecosystem of certified vendors could accelerate the implementation of this program and minimise the relevant risks.