What motivates and demotivates emergency response volunteers? A survey-based factor analysis study.

Background: Organized volunteer initiatives can reduce response times and improve outcomes in emergencies such as cardiac arrests or fires. Retention of volunteers is important to maintain good coverage and capabilities. The current study explores factors underlying volunteers' motivation to continue as volunteers.

Intentions to perform non-pharmaceutical protective behaviors during influenza outbreaks in Sweden: a cross-sectional study following a mass vaccination campaign.

Failure to incorporate the beliefs and attitudes of the public into theoretical models of preparedness has been identified as a weakness in strategies to mitigate infectious disease outbreaks. We administered a cross-sectional telephone survey to a representative sample (n = 443) of the Swedish adult population to examine whether self-reported intentions to improve personal hygiene and increase social distancing during influenza outbreaks could be explained by trust in official information, self-reported health (SF-8), sociodemographic factors, and determinants postulated in protection motivation theory, namely threat appraisal and coping appraisal. The interviewees were asked to make their appraisals for two scenarios: a) an influenza with low case fatality and mild lifestyle impact; b) severe influenza with high case fatality and serious disturbances of societal functions.

Third generation participatory design in health informatics--making user participation applicable to large-scale information system projects.

Participatory Design (PD) methods in the field of health informatics have mainly been applied to the development of small-scale systems with homogeneous user groups in local settings. Meanwhile, health service organizations are becoming increasingly large and complex in character, making it necessary to extend the scope of the systems that are used for managing data, information and knowledge. This study reports participatory action research on the development of a PD framework for large-scale system design.