ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has unhinged the lives of people across the globe. In particular, more than 30 million Chinese college students are home-schooling, yet there is little understanding of how academic workload, separation from school, and fears of contagion lead to a decrease in their health. This study examined the relationships between Chinese college students' three critical stressors and two types of health in the COVID-19 pandemic context. We used a three-wave lagged design with a one-week interval. All the constructs were assessed by self-report in anonymous surveys during the COVID-19 pandemic. College students were asked to report their demographic information, academic workload, separation from school, fears of contagion, perceived stress, and health. The results of this study showed that academic workload, separation from school, and fears of contagion had negative effects on college students' health via perceived stress. In the COVID-19 crisis, multiple prevention and control measures focusing on college students may lead them to have different degrees of stress and health problems. Our results enrich the literature on stress and health and offer novel practical implications for all circles of the society to ensure students' health under the context of the COVID-19 epidemic.
ABSTRACT
Objective: In December 2019, a novel coronavirus infectious disease, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), began to appear in China. Wuhan, Hubei Province, is the origin and core location of the epidemic. Neurosurgeons were faced with the challenge of balancing treatment of patients with life-threatening conditions and preventing the cross-transmission of the virus. Methods: A series of infection prevention and control strategies was adopted for the peri-operative period of emergency surgeries in our department. These strategies include protective measures for the emergency department (ED) and measures for the peri-operative period of emergency surgery. The propensity score matching (PSM) was used to match COVID-19-related patients with patients before the epidemic. Length of wait time in the ED and duration of operation were compared. Results: From January 23, 2020 to March 18, 2020, we performed emergency surgery for 19 patients who were either COVID-19-related or COVID-19-suspected. None of the medical staff involved in the surgeries developed viral infection, and no peri-operative virus transmission occurred in our hospital. After the PSM, 32 patients were included in the epidemic group and the pre-epidemic group (16 patients in each group). The duration of wait time in the ED of the former group was longer than that of the latter group (z = -3.000; p = 0.003). During the epidemic, the duration of a craniotomy was longer than before the epidemic (z = -2.253; p = 0.024), and there was no difference in the duration of interventional surgery (z = -0.314; p = 0.753). Conclusion: We believe that our experience can provide a useful reference for other surgeons facing the same challenges and as a lesson for similar infectious diseases that may occur in the future.