Ableism, as a pervasive yet often unchallenged structure of oppression, operates across multiple social domains, shaping perceptions of disability and normalcy. This article interrogates the complexities of ableism through an interdisciplinary framework that integrates complexity theory, Queer theory, and critical disability studies, engaging with the works of Michel Foucault and Georges Canguilhem (among others). Rather than treating ableism as a singular form of discrimination, the study examines its intersections with other oppressive systems, including homophobia, medicalization, and epistemic injustice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Health communication is an issue that deserves attention since there is evidence that the words used to describe a health condition can influence vaccine acceptance. This study aims to carry out a qualitative analysis of the metaphors used by Brazilian parents to describe how vaccines work.
Methods: Data were obtained from a cross-sectional study performed through an online survey from November 17 to December 14, 2021 in Brazil to assess the willingness of adult parents of children and adolescents residing in Brazil during the survey to prevent COVID-19 A set of 4 metaphors of how vaccines work was presented for the participant to choose which one best summarized how vaccines worked ("Vaccines are teachers that teach the body's defense system to fight infections", "Vaccines are weapons in the war against viruses", "Vaccines are medicines capable of fighting the virus", "Vaccines work like vitamins making the defense system stronger".
Objectives: to analyze how symbolic relationships established by healthcare professionals were expressed in their work during the pandemic.
Methods: This qualitative study was conducted through an online survey. Participants were healthcare professionals working in the state of Rio de Janeiro, recruited between 07/20 and 09/30/2020.
Eye movement during blinking can be a significant artifact in Event-Related Potentials (ERP) analysis. Blinks produce a positive potential in the vertical electrooculogram (VEOG), spreading towards the posterior direction. Two methods are frequently used to suppress VEOGs: linear regression to subtract the VEOG signal from the electroencephalogram (EEG) and Independent Component Analysis (ICA).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The COVID-19 pandemic led many countries to adopt strict measures aimed at reducing circulation of the virus and mitigating the burden on health services. Among these, the lockdown (social distancing/confinement) was probably the most controversial and most widely debated, since it affected the population's daily life abruptly, with consequences for people's emotional state and the operational logic of various economic sectors.
Objective: Analyze the relationship been Brazilians' opinions on lockdown during the pandemic and individual, sociodemographic, and belief characteristics.
Cien Saude Colet
October 2023
The mental health of health professionals who worked directly in services during the COVID-19 pandemic to care for patients affected by the disease became a fundamental issue to be considered, given the several consequences of this activity for these professionals. This article aimed to understand the challenges and demands of health professionals concerning support to address the emotional and physical exhaustion of working on the so-called frontline during the COVID-19 pandemic. The qualitative methodological approach was based on semi-structured interviews conducted online with these professionals after the first months of the pandemic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCad Saude Publica
October 2023
The objective is to unveil the reasons for vaccine hesitancy among parents and/or guardians of children and adolescents toward the prevention of COVID-19. This is a descriptive study, with a qualitative approach that seeks to analyze the answers to the open question "Why will you not vaccinate or have not vaccinated or are in doubt about vaccinating the children and adolescents under your responsibility, for the prevention of COVID-19?". The research included adult individuals, Brazilians, living in the country, responsible for children and adolescents under 18 years of age.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe brain is a complex system whose understanding enables potentially deeper approaches to mental phenomena. Dynamics of wide classes of complex systems have been satisfactorily described within q-statistics, a current generalization of Boltzmann-Gibbs (BG) statistics. Here, we study human electroencephalograms of typical human adults (EEG), very specifically their inter-occurrence times across an arbitrarily chosen threshold of the signal (observed, for instance, at the midparietal location in scalp).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: This study aims to assess the trustworthiness of information sources, perception of clear information about the vaccine, and strategies to increase adherence to vaccination to provide managers with information that helps establish effective communication with the population about vaccination.
Method: This is an online survey conducted between January 22 and 29, 2021, preceded by an Informed Consent, that aims to assess vaccine hesitancy, which corresponded to the first week of vaccination initiation to prevent COVID-19 in Brazil. Data were obtained from a questionnaire made available through a free platform and stored in Google Forms and later exported to the SPSS statistical package for analysis.
Background: The vaccination of children and adolescents for the prevention of Covid-19 is important to:decrease in deaths and hospitalizations, prevent multisystem inflammatory syndrome, avoid long-term complications and decrease the suspension of on-site classes. Despite of these benefits, some studies have shown that some caregivers are still hesitancy.
Methods: This is a voluntary and anonymous online survey conducted from November 17 to December 14, 2021, in Brazil, through a free-of-charge platform with a link provided on social networks.
Some children with severe microcephaly related to Zika virus infection show affective social-like behavior, such as smiling and rejection to a stranger's lap. Our objective was to check the association between this behavior and the occurrence of Mismatch Response (MMR) in event-related potentials. Twenty eight microcephalic children, aged 1-3 years, were divided in Affect(+) and Affect(-) groups, according to either the presence or absence of affective social-like behavior, respectively, and underwent the OddBall paradigm with vowels as auditory stimuli.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS One
February 2022
Unlabelled: Brazil has been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The high numbers of confirmed cases and deaths have continued unabated since the first reported case, with no flattening or downward turn in the curve. In this context, healthcare workers have been exposed uninterruptedly to stress factors throughout a year of the pandemic.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Methods for p-value correction are criticized for either increasing Type II error or improperly reducing Type I error in large exploratory data analysis. This text considers patterns in probability vectors resulting from mass univariate analysis to correct p-values, where clusters of significant p-values may indicate true H0 rejection.
New Method: We used ERP experimental data from control and ADHD boys to test the method.
Objective: To study the effect of prenatal Zika virus (ZV) infection on brainstem function reflected in brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs).
Methods: In a cross-sectional study in 19 children (12 girls) with microcephaly related to ZV infection, aged between 12 and 62 weeks, the brainstem function was examined through BAEPs. The latencies of wave peaks I, III, and V of the left and right ears (n = 37) were standardized according to normative data, and compared between them by 2-tailed test.