ABSTRACT
Introduction: Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (IDCM) physicians have critical importance in terms of pandemic management in hospitals. There are recommendations for hospitals in the national pandemic preparedness plan, which was developed to limit the damage during pandemic periods. With this study, it was aimed to determine the reading status of IDCM physicians of the pandemic plan and the factors affecting it, and to learn their views on the application of the headings in the plan. Materials and Methods: For this descriptive study, the opinions of physicians were collected with an electronic questionnaire for the periods of June 2020 and January 2021. Statistical analyses were conducted to determine the associated factors of physicians' reading of the pandemic plan. Results: Of the 169 physicians participating in the study, 62.7% were women, with a mean age of 43.1 +/- 9.9 years, and nearly two-thirds of the physicians were working in a tertiary hospital. More than 70% of physicians read the pandemic preparedness plan. The rate of reading of the pandemic plan increased with the physician's time spent in IDCM practice [odds ratio (OR)=1.08, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.01-1.16, p=0.037], and previous Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) experience (OR=3.10, 95% CI=1.00-9.58, p=0.050), and it decreased with the hand hygiene compliance of healthcare professional (OR=0.27, 95% CI=0.11-0.68, p=0.006) and the number of IDCM physicians working in the physician's hospital (OR=0.97, 95% CI=0.94-0.99, p=0.016). Conclusion: Physicians' reading status of the national pandemic preparedness plan did not differ significantly between the periods. As the time spent in IDCM practice and their pandemic experience before COVID-19 increased, the status of reading the pandemic plan increased. As the compliance with hand hygiene among the health professionals working in the physicians' hospital and the number of IDCM physicians increased it decreased. Attention should be paid to the introduction of the pandemic plan to physicians with professional inexperience and no pandemic experience.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: We aimed to assess the present knowledge, attitude and anxiety levels of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among healthcare workers at Ankara City Hospital. Materials and Methods: The study was implemented in the form of an online survey, based on voluntary participation and conducted on healthcare workers at the Ministry of Health Ankara City Hospital by using convenience sampling and snowball method between 30 May-2 July 2020. There were 28 questions on knowledge and 8 questions on attitude. The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) was used to measure the anxiety level of the participants. The results were analyzed using the SPSS program. Results: Of the participants, 75% were females, 61.25% were nurses/midwives, and mean age was 34.5 ± 10.1 years. A significant portion of the participants (84.50%) had a moderate or adequate level of knowledge. The highest knowledge score in terms of their professions are doctors, followed by nurses/midwives. The most used resource (71.25%) by our participants was the Ministry of Health’s web page, posters and brochures. The knowledge adequacy of those who have a case algorithm is 1.8 times. Of the participants, 61.0 % demonstrated a positive attitude. 25.25% were gauged to have severe and moderate anxiety. Of the participants, 42.39% stated that anxiety causing reason was the future of their family in case of death in our study. The anxiety score of the female participants was higher than that of the men, young people were higher than the other age groups. There was no significant correlation between the level of knowledge and attitude;whereas a negative, weak correlation was identified between the level of knowledge and anxiety, and between attitude and anxiety. Conclusion: Although the knowledge level of the participants was found to be adequate, in-service training on infection control measures, especially on the use of personal protective equipment should be continued using official information, such as algorithms are designed and other sources by the Ministry of Health. Health workers, especially women and young people, should be monitored psychologically, treated and social support for them should be increased during the pandemic. Increasing knowledge and positive attitudes may be contribute to decrease anxiety scores.
ABSTRACT
Objective: Early diagnosis is important for severe diseases in COVID-19. Monocyte/high dansity lipoprotein ratio (MHR) is a new prognostic marker indicating inflammation. We aimed to investigate the relationship between MHR and diseases severity in COVID-19. Methods: Patients with laboratory confirmed COVID-19, were retrospectively analyzed. Clinical symptoms, signs and laboratory data on the first day of hospitalization were obtained from medical records of hospital. The clinical data of 301 patients were included in study. Cases were diagnosed on the basis of interim guidance of World Health Organization (WHO). Patients were classified into two groups as non-severe COVID-19 and severe COVID-19. MHR were calculated with laboratory data on the first day of hospitalization. The relationship between MHR level and COVID-19 severity was evaluated. Statistical analysis of the data was performed by using SPSS 25 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) package program. Statistical significance level was accepted as p<0.05. Results: One hundred ninety-six patients (65.1 %) had non-severe COVID-19,105 patients (34.9 %) had severe COVID-19. In our study, it was found that the mean age was higher in severe patients and comorbid diseases were more common. Although monocyte count values were not statistically significantly different, MHR was significantly higher in severe COVID-19 than non-severe COVID-19. Conclusions: Monocytes are very important to cytokine storm in COVID-19. Dyslipidemia can occur in viral infection because of inflammation. MHR can be used as an inflammatory marker in COVID-19.