Health seeking behavior of patients with Ischemic Heart Disease during the COVID-19 pandemic in the outpatient clinics of a tertiary hospital

Background@#Ischemic Heart Disease is a chronic, progressive, and dynamic disease. It remains to be the number one cause of mortality globally and in the Philippines. Patients with IHD belong to the vulnerable group both before and during the COVID 19 pandemic. Currently, there have been changes in the healthcare system leading to decreased delivery of services such as outpatient care and development of medical care avoidance affecting patients’ clinical outcomes.@*Objectives@#This study aimed to determine if there are any changes in the health seeking behavior of these patients during the pandemic in a single tertiary hospital.@*Methods@#Descriptive and analytical cross-sectional design was used. Majority of the population were 60 years old and above, female, unemployed, non-smokers, diagnosed with IHD for 5 years, with hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus as co-morbidities.@*Results@#It was shown that majority did not have any change in the frequency of consultation with their cardiologists and majority preferred face-to-face consultation. For those who had decreased frequency of consultation, their reasons include fear of contracting COVID-19, lockdown and travel restrictions, limited number of patients catered at the clinic and lack of finances. Majority remained to be compliant with their maintenance medications and claimed to be willing to seek consult if they will experience severe symptom such as chest pain. For those who were not willing to go to the hospital despite having severe symptoms, the following were their reasons: fear of going out due to COVID 19, symptoms were tolerable and were not considered emergency and hospitals were in full capacity. Majority were not admitted in the hospital but those who were not admitted had less frequent consultation with their cardiologists. Despite the COVID threat, majority still agreed that constant follow-up with their cardiologist is of paramount importance.

Detection of neutralizing antibodies among health care workers and staff fully-vaccinated against COVID-19 in a Baguio City tertiary hospital: A cross-sectional study

Background@#Coronavirus disease 2019, otherwise known as COVID-19 is caused by the novel coronavirus. The WHO stated that as of April 24, 2020, no study has evaluated if the antibodies against COVID-19 confer immunity. The aim therefore of this research is to determine the presence of neutralizing antibodies among fully vaccinated Health Care workers and staff of Notre Dame de Chartres Hospital.@*Methods@#This study is a single-center, cross-sectional study conducted at Notre Dame de Chartres Hospital in Baguio City. This study was designed to determine the presence of neutralizing antibodies 6 months after the 2nd dose of COVID-19 vaccine, either with Sinovac (CoronaVac®), an inactivated virus, or Oxford AstraZeneca, a non-replicating viral vector. The study was approved by the Ethics Review Board of the Baguio General Hospital Medical Center. A total of 206 participants enrolled voluntarily in the study. Descriptive statistics such as frequency and percentage were used to determine the baseline characteristics of the research participants. The mean amounts of antibodies after vaccination against COVID-19 were determined. Independent-sample t-test was utilized to determine if there was a significant difference in antibody production when comparing the two brands of vaccine, according to sex, employee status, presence of at least one comorbidity, and history of COVID-19 vaccination. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for the variable age. All statistical tests were conducted at p<0.05 level of significance. Computations were done using SPSS version 22.0.@*Results@#A total of 236 healthcare workers and staff of Notre Dame de Chartres Hospital were included in the study. Among the study participants given either Sinovac or AstraZeneca, 52.97% belong to the 20-30 years old age group. Most of them were females (69.92%). For employment status, healthcare workers comprised the majority of the study population at 71.61% while the rest (28.36%) were hospital staff. Most did not have any comorbidities, while 26.27% reported having comorbidities, with hypertension and asthma identified as the predominant diseases at 9.75% and 9.32%, respectively; followed by allergic rhinitis (5.32%) and diabetes mellitus (2.97%). Among the participants, 74.6% were never diagnosed with COVID-19, while 25.4% reported to have been infected, with 16.5% having only mild symptoms. Most of the study participants (67.4%) were inoculated with Sinovac® while the rest (32.6%) received AstraZeneca.@*Conclusion@#There was no significant difference in the mean amount of antibodies when grouped according to each of the following variables: age, sex, employee status, and comorbidities. These results apply to both SINOVAC and AstraZeneca groups. There was a significantly higher mean amount of antibodies in those who had previously contracted COVID-19 than in those who never had a previous infection. On the other hand, comparing the mean amount of antibodies between the two brands of vaccines, SinovacTM and AstraZenecaTM, those who were vaccinated with AstraZenecaTM developed higher amounts of antibodies than those who were vaccinated with SinovacTM.