During a 2020 survey, ** percent of Mexicans in home office since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic reported working long hours to accomplish their tasks. In addition, more than a quarter of respondents said they were contacted via multiple channels throughout the day and felt overwhelmed as a result. Among the factors impacting home office effectiveness are the challenges in terms of work environment, with ** percent of respondents reporting being frequently interrupted by others in the household.

The transition to home office as a result of the pandemic presented multiple technological challenges to a substantial share of the work force in Mexico. A survey conducted in 2020 showed that ** percent of respondents who had to work from home in the first weeks following the coronavirus outbreak were required to use technology they were not familiar with. Workers have also had to adjust to lower speeds of online systems, limited hardware available at home, and the inability to access data remotely.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced businesses to adapt to a home office format to remain operating while keeping their staff safe from contagion. Consequently, workers have had to navigate through several challenges such as ensuring that their environment is suitable for work. During a 2020 survey carried out in Mexico, nearly a third of respondents doing home office said they felt they should take care of their family instead, while over ** percent stated lacking a comfortable work space as well as being frequently distracted by others in the household. In addition, Mexicans also reported a series of challenges related to technological reliability.

The transition to home office as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has exposed how technology remains unreliable when confronted with major changes in consumption. According to a survey conducted in Mexico in 2020, ** percent of respondents working from home during the COVID-19 outbreak said their broadband connection kept dropping out. Video conference and voice call platforms also presented issues, with more than ** percent of those surveyed reporting calls dropping. Even with these challenges, most Mexicans working remotely stated having lower levels of stress than when in the office.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the global economy and modified lifestyles. The aim of our study was to identify factors associated with dietary quality, and their frequency, in Mexican adults at the initial and later stages of the pandemic.Methods: Two online surveys were conducted between June and July 2020 (n = 3,131) and between November and December 2020 (n = 1,703 including non-participants from 1st round). A diet quality score was estimated using a short instrument to measure the consumption of several healthy/unhealthy food items. Linear regression models were used to identify the association between pandemic related factors and the diet quality score, adjusted by sociodemographic characteristics. The 2nd round was weighted to represent the 1st round.Results: During the 1st and 2nd rounds only ~12% of the sample perceived that their intake of healthy food decreased, relative to before the pandemic; ~20% perceived that their intake of unhealthy foods increased. Diet quality remained similar between the 1st and 2nd round. The following factors were negatively associated with diet quality: Eating food prepared away-from-home; going out to work ≥4 times/week; decreased time for food preparation; decreased interest in eating healthy; eating more due to anxiety, depression, or boredom; food insecurity; and stockpiling junk food. Purchasing food using a mixed modality of both in-store and home delivery was positively associated with diet quality. With the exception of eating more due to anxiety (reported by 47% of participants), all these factors were reported by a minority of participants during the first round (≤15%). During the 2nd round, there was an increase in the frequency of participants who reported eating food prepared away-from-home, going out to work ≥4 times/week, having less time to prepare food, being more interested in eating healthfully, and a decrease in participants eating more due to anxiety, depression or boredom, or stockpiling junk food.Conclusions: Most participants perceived that their dietary intake improved during both initial and later stages of the pandemic. This might be related to factors associated with higher dietary quality, such as not going out to work, eating homemade food, and online grocery shopping.

This proposal relates to the call of the PSA PSA COVID-19 Rapid Project 003 data collection effort in Mexico. To slow the transmission of COVID-19, governments around the world are asking their citizens to participate in social distancing, that is, to stay at home as much as possible. In most countries, individuals have some choice over whether or not they follow recommendations for social distancing. Thus, understanding how to best motivate social distancing has become a public health priority. This study tests, in a confirmatory manner, whether self-determination theory-guided message framing impacts people’s motivation to participate in social distancing. Specifically, we expect autonomy-supportive messages that help people understand the value of behavior change to a) increase ‘buy in’, or autonomous motivation, for social distancing, b) reduce feelings of defiance in response to those messages, and c) increase behavioral intentions to socially distance, relative to neutral and controlling messages. Further, we expect controlling messages that pressure people to change using shame, guilt, and demands, may backfire and a) decrease ‘buy in’ for social distancing, b) increase defiance, relative to the control condition, and c) reduce behavioral intentions to socially distance. We also expect ‘buy in’, or autonomous motivation, to explain why messages impact defiance and behavioral intentions. Exploratory tests will examine whether the effects of message framing on motivation, defiance, and behavioral intentions are moderated by culture, providing sufficient variability on this measure is obtained. This work has direct relevance for how public officials, health professionals, journalists, and others can communicate about solving this and future public health crises in ways that motivate people more effectively.

Since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak, due to the large number of patients requiring in-hospital care, hospitals worldwide were converted into COVID-19 referral centers. In addition, as part of the mitigation strategies besides social distancing and mandatory use of facemasks, other measures to reduce the risk of infection among healthcare workers such as increasing the time between work shifts and sending high-risk personnel to in-home isolation were taken, leading to a significantly reduced workforce, requiring relocation of medical personnel from multiple specialties to the frontline.

By April 2020, due to the reduction of medical and administrative staff in addition to the steadily increasing number of patients, our center decided to stop all face-to-face non-COVID-19 consultations. Therefore, we decided to adapt to the challenges and started researching how to implement a teleneurology program to re-open our neurology continuity clinic. Here, we describe our experience developing and implementing a teleneurology program in Mexico and patient satisfaction with our program.

To assess patient satisfaction and quality of the healthcare received, at the end of the consultations, to those who had internet access, we sent via e-mail or text message an anonymous 24-question online-based questionnaire (modified for the COVID-19 pandemic) developed and validated for the Spanish-speaking population.

We included 304 patients. The most common neurologic disorders we attended were neuromuscular disorders in 33.6% of patients, headache disorders in 32.9%, epilepsy in 11.5%, cerebrovascular diseases in 5.9%, and movement disorders in 5.6%. None of the patients required an in-person visit. Of the 304 patients, only 125 (41%) answered the survey, 86.4% preferred teleneurology instead of an in-person consultation, 83.3% (90/108) of them because of concerns about getting COVID-19; 92% completely agree that they felt comfortable when talking to the neurologist through a camera and a microphone; 96% reported being satisfied with their consultation; 87.2% completely agree in trusting that their privacy would be protected. However, 4% were not satisfied, but their reasons were not specified. Our findings suggest that telemedicine is a feasible and acceptable option to continue with neurological patient care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a survey carried out in July 2020, ** percent of men and ** percent of women surveyed in Mexico stated they were working from home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, approximately **** out of ten of respondents in the North American country had seen a decrease in their income. Less than ***** percent of Mexican survey participants of both sexes received support from the government.