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The aim of this research was to investigate the validity and reliability of a Turkish version of the 26-item Australian Psychological Preparedness for Disaster Threat Scale (PPDTS). A cross-sectional study involving 530 university students and staff at Giresun University was conducted to establish the psychometric properties of the PPDTS. Content analysis, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and Cronbach alpha values for reliability were used to analyze the data. Content analysis showed that one item needed to be dropped as it was not related to environmental threats to Turkish communities. The exploratory factor analysis indicated that 66% of the total variance was explained by three factors: (i) knowledge and management of the external situational environment, (ii) management of one’s emotional and psychological response, and (iii) management of one’s social environment. The confirmatory factor analysis showed acceptable overall goodness of fit for the three-factor model: CFI (0.908), RMSEA (0.074) for the 21 item scale. Cronbach's α coefficients of the subscales were 0.91, 0.93, and 0.83 respectively, while for the whole scale it was 0.95. Four items from the original PPDTS were deleted in the course of the analyses. It was concluded that the Turkish version (PPDTS-T21) is a valid and reliable assessment tool for the evaluation of levels of psychological readiness for disaster threats to Turkish communities and will be useful in policy making for community preparedness for disaster events.

Objective: The aim of this study is to assess the mental health status of healthcare workers (HCWs) and to examine the relationships between depression, anxiety, stress, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and professional quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey. Method: The research was a descriptive and cross-sectional, quantitative questionnaire survey study: 450 HCWs were sampled in a tertiary health institution declared as a pandemic hospital in Giresun, Turkey between 1 June and 30 August 2021. They completed the Depression Anxiety and Stress Short Form Scale (DASS-21), PTSD Checklist for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (PCL-5), and Professional Quality of Life (ProQOL-V) self-report measures. For the analyses, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson Correlation Analysis and multiple linear regression analysis were performed using the SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 21.0 programs. Results: Appreciable percentages of the HCWs reported mild or greater levels of depression (64%), anxiety (59%), stress (48%), PTSD (49%), together with elevated levels of burnout (83%), and secondary traumatic stress (STS 44%). Being a woman, young, nurse, less experienced, lower educated, lost any relative or friend, consider resigning in the COVID-19 pandemic and afraid of infecting their family were risk factors for mental health of HCWs. PTSD scores were associated with depression, anxiety and stress; burnout was associated with depression, anxiety, stress and PTSD; STS was associated with PTSD. Continued monitoring and psychological support for HCWs' mental health post-COVID is desirable.

Social media has completely reshaped how individuals communicate about almost every topic, including health. Image-video-sharing and platforms, micro-blogging, and social networking such as Instagram, SnapChat, YouTube, and Twitter can increase or decrease the effectiveness of health promotion interventions by providing access to at-risk audiences. Social media influencers are defined as people online who are followed by others and from whom they receive advice regarding purchasing products/ services, ultimately influencing attitudes and behavior through their credentials. In this study, attention was drawn to social media influencers in creating health behavior change based on the literature, and the effect of influencers on followers and businesses was tried to be comprehensively evaluated. Social networking sites offer an important means for increasing the accessibility and enabling new forms of health communication between the public and medical social influencers. In the literature, it has been found that social media influencers have an effect on many issues such as smoking cessation, increasing knowledge against flu vaccine, diet, and exercise, food choices, etc. Mothers also use social media actively and impressive impact on child nutrition, smoking, and alcohol encouraging the use of the content on the restriction of the skin, cosmetic products that affect the health of the inspection, and scientific studies on topics such as increasing physical activity to be done in the coming years will shape the debate in both Bioethics and public health policies. The insufficient number of studies in the literature has limited our study. It is recommended to increase the research on the effect of social media influencers on creating health behavior change.