Factors associated with progression of depression, anxiety, and stress-related symptoms in outpatients and inpatients with COVID-19: A longitudinal study.

It is known that there is an increase in the frequency of psychiatric disturbances in the acute and post-illness phase of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Comorbid psychiatric symptoms complicate the management of patients and negatively affect the prognosis, but there is no clear evidence of their progress. We aimed to determine psychiatric comorbidity in inpatients and outpatients with COVID-19 and recognize the factors that predict psychiatric comorbidity. For this purpose, we evaluated patients on the first admission and after 4 weeks. We investigated psychiatric symptoms in outpatients (n = 106) and inpatients (n = 128) diagnosed with COVID-19. In the first 7 days after diagnosis (first phase), sociodemographic and clinic data were collected, a symptom checklist was constructed, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the Severity of Acute Stress Symptoms Scale (SASSS) were applied. After 30-35 days following the diagnosis, the SASSS and the HADS were repeated. In the first phase, the frequency of depression and anxiety were 55% and 20% in inpatients, and 39% and 18% in outpatients, respectively. In the second phase, depression scores are significantly decreased in both groups whereas anxiety scores were decreased only in inpatients. The frequencies of patients reporting sleep and attention problems, irritability, and suicide ideas decreased after 1 month. Patients with loss of smell and taste exhibit higher anxiety and depression scores in both stages. Our results revealed that the rate of psychiatric symptoms in COVID-19 patients improves within 1 month. Inpatients have a more significant decrease in both depression and anxiety frequency than do outpatients. The main factor affecting anxiety and depression was the treatment modality. Considering that all patients who were hospitalized were discharged at the end of the first month, this difference may be due to the elimination of the stress caused by hospitalization.

An indirect effect of COVID-19 pandemic: Increased pediatric perforated appendicitis rate due to delayed admission.

Objectives: Appendicitis is a common surgical emergency among children. The coronavirus pandemic affected the system of hospitals more than any other field, and great amount of people were concerned about visiting the hospitals for any reason. In this study, it was aimed to evaluate the profile of appendicitis by emphasizing perforated and acute appendicitis in the pandemic period and to compare the rates with previous three years. Material and Methods: Charts of the children who underwent laparoscopic appendectomy due to appendicitis between March 11-September 30 between 2017-2020 were retrospectively analyzed in terms of demographic data, duration of symptoms, duration between hospital admission and surgery, radiologic imaging and perioperative outcomes. Results: This study includes 467 children who underwent laparoscopic appendectomy. There were 97 procedures in 2020, 111 in 2019, 146 in 2018 and 113 in 2017. Multiple comparison tests revealed that age did not show difference; but onset of symptoms in admission (p= 0.004), hospitalization time before surgery (p <0.001), total hospitalization time (p <0.001) showed statistically significant difference between years. Pairwise comparisons showed that these parameters were increased in 2020 compared to other years. Perforated appendicitis rate was significantly increased in 2020 when compared to previous years. Conclusion: Although there is no direct relation between appendicitis and COVID-19 infection in the current knowledge, perforated appendicitis was found to be increased in children during the COVID pandemic. Reason of the higher rate of perforated appendicitis may be multifactorial; however, the pandemic appears to have a role in increased morbidity in children with appendicitis indirectly due to delay of hospital admissions.

Is pulse oximeter a reliable tool for non-critically ill patients with COVID-19?

INTRODUCTION: Guidelines recommend using a pulse oximeter rather than arterial blood gas (ABG) for COVID-19 patients. However, significant differences can be observed between oxygen saturation measured by pulse oximetry (SpO2 ) and arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2 ) in some clinical conditions. We aimed to assess the reliability of the pulse oximeter in patients with COVID-19. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed ABG analyses and SpO2 levels measured simultaneously with ABG in patients hospitalised in COVID-19 wards. RESULTS: We categorised total 117 patients into two groups, in whom the difference between SpO2 and SaO2 was ≤4% (acceptable difference) and >4% (large difference). A large difference group exhibited higher neutrophil count, C-reactive protein, ferritin, fibrinogen, D-dimer and lower lymphocyte count. Multivariate analyses revealed that increased fibrinogen, increased ferritin and decreased lymphocyte count were independent risk factors for a large difference between SpO2 and SaO2 . The total study group demonstrated the negative bias of 4.02% with the limits of agreement of -9.22% to 1.17%. The bias became significantly higher in patients with higher ferritin, fibrinogen levels and lower lymphocyte count. CONCLUSION: Pulse oximeters may not be sufficient to assess actual oxygen saturation, especially in COVID-19 patients with high ferritin and fibrinogen levels and low lymphocyte count with low SpO2 measurements.

A model integrating Killer Immunoglobulin-like Receptor (KIR) haplotypes for risk prediction of COVID-19 clinical disease severity.

Associations between inherited Killer Immunoglobulin-like Receptor (KIR) genotypes and the severity of multiple RNA virus infections have been reported. This prospective study was initiated to investigate if such an association exists for COVID-19. In this cohort study performed at Ankara University, 132 COVID-19 patients (56 asymptomatic, 51 mild-intermediate, and 25 patients with severe disease) were genotyped for KIR and ligands. Ankara University Donor Registry (n:449) KIR data was used for comparison. Clinical parameters (age, gender, comorbidities, blood group antigens, inflammation biomarkers) and KIR genotypes across cohorts of asymptomatic, mild-intermediate, or severe disease were compared to construct a risk prediction model based on multivariate binary logistic regression analysis with backward elimination method. Age, blood group, number of comorbidities, CRP, D-dimer, and telomeric and centromeric KIR genotypes (tAA, tAB1, and cAB1) along with their cognate ligands were found to differ between cohorts. Two prediction models were constructed; both included age, number of comorbidities, and blood group. Inclusion of the KIR genotypes in the second prediction model exp (-3.52 + 1.56 age group - 2.74 blood group (type A vs others) + 1.26 number of comorbidities - 2.46 tAB1 with ligand + 3.17 tAA with ligand) increased the predictive performance with a 92.9% correct classification for asymptomatic and 76% for severe cases (AUC: 0.93; P < 0.0001, 95% CI 0.88, 0.99). This novel risk model, consisting of KIR genotypes with their cognate ligands, and clinical parameters but excluding earlier published inflammation-related biomarkers allow for the prediction of the severity of COVID-19 infection prior to the onset of infection. This study is listed in the National COVID-19 clinical research studies database.

COVID-19 pneumonia and pneumothorax: case series.

Barotrauma is a commonly reported complication in critically ill patients with ARDS caused by different etiologies, it's rate is reported to be around %10. Pneumothorax/pneumomediastinum in COVID-19 patients seem to be more common and have different clinical characteristics. Here we report 9 patients who had pneumothorax and/or pneumomediastinum during their stay in the ICU. Patients who were admitted to ICU between March 2020 and December 2020, were reviewed for presence of pneumothorax, pneumomediastinum and subcutaneous emphysema during their ICU stay. Demographic characteristics, mechanical ventilation settings, documented ventilation parameters, outcomes were studied. A total of 161 patients were admitted to ICU during the study period, 96 were invasively ventilated. Nine patients had developed pneumothorax, pneumomediastinum and/or subcutaneous emphysema during their admission. Five of them were men and median age was 66.6 years. All patients were intubated and mechanically ventilated. All patients were managed conservatively. One patient was discharged from ICU, the others were lost due to other complications related to COVID-19. Upon detection of pneumothorax and/or mediastinum all patients were managed conservatively by limiting their PEEP and maximum inspiratory pressures and were followed by daily chest X-rays (CXR) for detection of any progress. None of the patients showed increase in size of their pneumothorax and/or pneumomediastinum. Hemodynamically instability due to pneumothorax and/or pneumomediastinum was not observed in any of the patients. Tension pneumothorax was not observed in any of the patients. Most common reason for death was sepsis due to secondary bacterial infections. Acute deterioration with rapid oxygen desaturation or palpation of crepitation over thorax and neck in a COVID-19 patient should prompt a search for pneumothorax or pneumomediastinum. Conservative management may be an option as long as the patients are stable.