ABSTRACT
Objective: To investigate the effect of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) phobia in patients with ureteral stones. Materials and Methods: Between August 2020 and March 2021, patients over the age of 18 who were diagnosed with ureteral stones were included in this study. The COVID-19 Phobia scale (C19P-S) was used to measure the COVID-19 phobia levels of the patients. Demographic and patients' characteristics were recorded. The time between the onset of the patient's complaint and the time of admission to the hospital was recorded and grouped as group 1 (≤7 days), group 2 (7-21 days), group 3 (>21 days). Results: A total of 77 patients with a mean age of 45.8±14.8 years were eligible for analysis. Among these, 55 (71.4%) were male. According to the time between the onset of the patient's complaint and the time of admission to the hospital, there were 39 (50.6%) patients in group 1 (≤7 days), 17 (22.1%) patients in group 2 (7-21 days) and 21 (27.3%) patients group 3 (>21 days). The median C19P-S scores in these groups were 32.0 (15.0- 46.0), 37.0 (26.0-62.0) and 56.0 (37.0-80.0), respectively. There were significant differences in terms of C19P-S between groups of the time between the onset of the patient's complaint and the time of admission to the hospital (p≤0.001). Conclusion: COVID-19 phobia caused a delay in the hospital admission of patients with ureter stones. When patients have complaints, it is necessary to raise the awareness of society about applying to the hospital and to increase awareness of this issue.
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the face-to-face meetings are delayed to a future date, which is still not clear. However, seminars, meetings and conferences are necessary for updating our knowledge and skills. Web-based seminars (webinars) are the solutions to this issue. This study aimed to show the participant behaviour when webinars present at the COVID-19 pandemic era. METHODS: From December 2017 to July 2020, 58 webinars were broadcasted via the Uropedia, electronic library of SUST. Data of all webinars were collected with the YouTube analytics and application of the Uropedia. Data of streaming webinars included participant behaviours such as content views, engagement time, total unique attendees, average engagement time and the number of audience to leads. Data were split into two groups; group-1 is webinars before COVID-19 (before March 2020) and group-2 is the webinars during COVID-19. RESULTS: Total broadcast time and total page view number were found to be 112.6 hours (6761 minutes) and 15 919, respectively. The median participant age was 40.1 y. Median content view and median engagement time were found to be 261.0 and 12.2 minutes, respectively. Comparison of two groups revealed a significant increment in the content views (group-1; 134.0 range = 86.0-87.0 and group-2; 414.0 range = 296.0-602.0, P < .001) and the number of the unique attendees (group 1; 18.0 range = 10.0-26.0 and group-2; 57.0 range = 27.0-100.0, P < .001) following COVID-19. However, the median engagement time of the audience did not seem to change with the COVID-19 pandemic (group-1; 11.5 range = 10.0-13.3 minutes and group-2; 13.2 range = 9.4-18.1 minutes, P = .12). CONCLUSION: The webinars are effective ways to share information and have many advantages, including low cost, reaching a high number of audiences. Audience number and page visits seemed to increase following the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this era did not seem to affect the critical attitude of the audience, which is engagement time.