Purpose: Facing the COVID-19 pandemic, police officers are confronted with various novel challenges, which might place additional strain on officers. This mixed-method study investigated officers' strain over a three-month-period after the lockdown. Methods: In an online survey, 2567 police officers (77% male) from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Spain participated at three measurement points per country in spring, 2020. Three-level growth curve models assessed changes in strain and its relation to stressor appraisal, emotion regulation, and preparedness through training. To add context to the findings, free response answers about officers' main tasks, stressors, and crisis measures were coded inductively. Results: On average, officers seemed to tolerate the pandemic with slight decreases in strain over time. Despite substantial variance between countries, 66% of the variance occurred between individuals. Sex, work experience, stressor appraisal, emotion regulation, and preparedness significantly predicted strain. Risk of infection and deficient communication emerged as main stressors. Officers' reports allowed to derive implications for governmental, organizational, and individual coping strategies during pandemics. Conclusion: Preparing for a pandemic requires three primary paths: 1) enacting unambiguous laws and increasing public compliance through media communication, 2) being logistically prepared, and 3) improving stress regulation skills in police training.
DOCUMENT
This chapter revisits the concept of internationalisation at home in light of the COVID pandemic and also of experiences and ongoing discourses on internationalisation. These include how internationalisation at home relates to diversity, inclusion and decolonisation of curricula. It discusses how the COVID pandemic has led to increased attention to internationalisation at home but also that confusion about terminology and the desire for physical mobility to be available to students may lead us to return to pre-COVID practices, in which internationalisation is mainly understood as mobility for a small minority of students and internationalisation of the home curriculum is a poor second best. A component of this chapter is how Virtual Exchange and Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) have moved into the spotlight during the pandemic but were already in focus areas well before. This will be illustrated by some recent developments in internationalisation at home, mainly from non-Anglophone, European and particularly Dutch perspectives.
DOCUMENT
ABSTRACT Objectives To examine the extent of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health and well-being of mental health professionals (MHPs) in the Netherlands and understand their needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design and setting A cross-sectional, mixed-methods study was conducted with MHPs from the Netherlands from June 2020 to October 2020, consisting of an online survey and three online focus group discussions. Participants Participants were MHPs from various occupational groups (psychologists, social workers, mental health nurses, developmental education workers, etc). Primary and secondary outcome measures The online survey included questions about work-related changes due to COVID-19 perceived resilience to stress, changes in lifestyle behaviours and mental health symptoms. The focus group discussions focused mostly on work experiences during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results MHP’s reported an increase in experience workload during the pandemic (mean score 8.04 based on a scale of 1-10) compared to before the pandemic (mean score of 7). During the first wave of the pandemic, 50% of respondents reported increased stress, 32% increased sleeping problems and 24% increased mental health problems. Adverse occupational (eg, increased workload OR 1.72, 95% CI 1.28–2.32), psychological (eg, life satisfaction OR 0.63, 95% CI 0.52–0.75), lifestyle (eg, increased sleep problems OR 2.80, 95% CI 2.07–3.80) and physical factors (decline in physical health OR 3.56, 95% CI 2.61–4.85) were associated with a decline in mental health. Participants expressed significant concern in the focus group discussions about the duration of the pandemic, the high workload, less work-life balance and lack of contact with colleagues. Suggestions to improve working conditions included ensuring clear communication about guidelines and facilitating worker contact and support via peer-to- peer coaching where experiences can be shared. Conclusions The current study indicates that MHP experienced a decline in mental health status during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, which should be taken into consideration by employers, policymakers and researchers.
DOCUMENT
Air-to-Water (A2W) systems are innovative technologies which make possible to supply drinking water to regions without any nearby surface or ground water source. Such systems use green energy (solar, wind) to condense air humidity and provide fresh water in rather remote locations. As water production is area dependent, they operate at relatively small fluxes (few cubic meters per day, per unit), which makes them especially suitable for small isolated communities that are not supplied by municipal water supply services. Even though they have reached quite high technology redness level (TRL), in-situ, real scale, tests are still required to optimize energy performance and evaluate production at very specific meteorological conditions. In this project we propose an in-situ evaluation of the performance of a real scale A2W system produced by a Dutch company (Dutch Rain Maker, model AW-25) in the semi-arid region of Northeast Brazil. The cooperation with a HBO institute (Water Technology lectoraat, NHL Stenden) will provide the necessary analytical and technical support as well as extra expertise to conduct the tests. The project uses the opportunity given by the state government of Ceará State which built an infra-structure to provide space for in-situ tests for experts and companies who would like to test water technology solutions for arid regions. Finally, it is also intended to help establishing partnerships between European SME and Brazilian end users, i.e. municipalities of the Ceará state and small agriculture companies in the region.
