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In order to prevent the spread of Corona Virus Disease 2019(COVID-19) epidemic in the military barracks and reduce the psychological stress reaction of officers and soldiers during the epidemic situation, this paper synthesizes relevant studies at home and abroad,from the analysis on behavioral factors affecting the transmission of 2019-nCoV by combining psychological crisis intervention methods, raises the plans and measures for psychological intervention and health promotion for officers and soldiers, and explores how to conduct psychological intervention and health promotion on the troops during the COVID-19 epidemic. © 2022, Editorial Department of Medical Pest Control. All rights reserved.
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According to the report, healthcare continues to be the industry suffering the highest cost of a data breach at $7.13 million when factoring in other costs such as incident response, lost business, and notification costs. The cost of healthcare breaches is expected to increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, as 76 percent of HCOs in the survey predicted that implementing an incident response strategy will be made much more difficult by the ubiquity of remote work during the pandemic.2 Most healthcare executives lack overall information security, employee security awareness, and incident response strategies.3 Breaches related to EHR can significantly affect HCOs, such as the accidental release of PHI to disruptions in clinical care.4-6 Disruptions and delays in patient care can result in patient death, and the impact on patient safety is likely to be underreported.7 Federal compliance laws such as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act were enacted to require the adoption of electronic medical records and protect privacy and data security of PHI.8As required by section 13402 (e) (4) of the HITECH Act, The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) must post a list of breaches of unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals. The HIPAA Security Rule requires healthcare organizations and covered entities protect electronic personal health information from cybersecurity threats.9 It also imposes administrative, technical, and physical standards for safeguards that organizations must implement. The OCR publishes details of these reported breaches beginning October 2009 and makes the dataset publicly available.10 It includes reports from HCOs that have suffered breaches that compromised 500 or more EHRs. Since the law requires HCOs to notify HHS in the event of a violation, we believe that this nationwide sample is sufficiently representative of the population of EHR-related breaches in healthcare, with some limitations.
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Introduction: Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 20-30% of family members had symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or anxiety, while 15-30% had symptoms of depression. Interventions supporting family members have reduced burden of these symptoms. COVID-19 has resulted in prolonged ICU stays, high morbidity/mortality, and hospital policies severely limiting family presence at the bedside. We hypothesized the combination of prolonged critical illness and the necessary reduction of family presence would lead to high rates of PTSD, anxiety, and depression;likely higher than observed in previous studies. Methods: This was a multicenter study including 12 US hospitals, 8 academic and 4 community-based hospitals. A consecutive sample of family members of all patients with COVID-19 receiving ICU admission during the spring US peak in 2020 were called 3-4 months after the patients' ICU admission, except for New York City hospitals where a random sample was generated given the large number of hospitalizations. Consented participants completed the Impact-of- Events Scale-6 (IES-6;scored 0-30, higher scores indicate more symptoms of PTSD), Hospital-Anxiety- Depression Score (HADS, scored 0-20 for anxiety and 0-20 for depression, higher scores indicate more symptoms), and a subset of questions from Family-Satisfaction in the ICU-27 (FS-ICU27;scored on a Likert scale 1 to 5, with higher scores indicating more positive responses) selected as most likely impacted by restrictive family presence.Results: There were 945 eligible family members during the study period. Of those, 594 were contacted and 269 (45.3%) consented and completed surveys. The mean IES-6 score was 12.6 (95% CI 11.8- 13.4) with 65.4% having a score of 10 or greater, consistent with high levels of symptoms of PTSD. The mean score on the HADS-anxiety was 9.4 (95% CI 8.8-10.1) with 59.5% having a score of 8 or greater, consistent with high levels of symptoms of anxiety. Finally, the mean score for the HADS-depression was 8.0 (95% CI 7.3-8.7) with 47.6% having scores of 8 or greater, consistent with high level of symptoms of depression. The mean response for the FSICU27 questions of “I felt I had control” was 3.5 (95% CI 3.3-3.6), “I felt supported” was 3.8 (95% CI 3.6-4.0), and “I felt included” was 4.3 (95% CI 4.2-4.4).Conclusion: The consequences of a family member admitted to the ICU with COVID-19 infection are significant. We identify rates of PTSD, anxiety, and depression higher than recorded in non-COVID population. Further analysis is warranted to understand modifiable risk factors for developing these symptoms.
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RATIONALE: Currently, there are over 20,000 COVID-19 positive patients requiring intensive care unit (ICU) care in the United States (US). Even prior to the pandemic, up to 30% of family members of ICU patients experience post-traumatic stress disorder and up to 50% sustain potentially prolonged anxiety and/or depression. Although family bedside engagement improves both short-and long-term outcomes for patients and their families, nationwide social distancing recommendations have curtailed hospital visitation, potentially heightening the risk of stress-related disorders in these family members. The goal of this analysis is to explore the experiences of physically distanced family members of COVID-19 ICU patients in order to inform future best practices. Methods: This qualitative analysis is part of a multisite, observational, mixed-methods study of 12 US hospitals. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 75 participants from five sites;14 interviews were analyzed in this preliminary analysis. Adult family members of COVID-19 positive patients admitted to the ICU from March-June 2020 were interviewed three months post-discharge. After sequential screening by site coordinators, participants were contacted by the qualitative team until all interviews (10-15 per site) were completed. Qualitative interviews explored the illness stories, communication perceptions, and explored stressors. Thematic analysis was applied to the verbatim transcripts of the phone interviews. Four coders utilized an iteratively-developed codebook to analyze transcripts using a round-robin method with two analysts per transcript. Discrepant codes were adjudicated by a third analyst to attend to inter-rater reliability. Results: Five preliminary themes and seven subthemes emerged (Table 1). Positive communication experiences were more common than negative ones. Communication themes were: 1) Participants were reassured by proactive and frequent communication, leaving them feeling informed and included in care;and 2) Mixed feelings were expressed about the value of video-conferencing technology. Themes from the emotional and stress experiences were: 3) Profound sadness and distress resulted from isolation from patients, clinicians, and supportive family;4) Stress was amplified by external factors;and 5) Positive experiences centered upon appreciation for healthcare workers and gratitude for compassionate care. Conclusion: Incorporating the voices of family members during the COVID-19 pandemic establishes a foundation to inform family-centered, best practice guidelines to support the unique needs of family members who are physically distant from their critically ill and dying loved ones.
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Correction to: European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences 2020; 24 (22): 11939-11944-DOI: 10.26355/eurrev_202011_23854-PMID: 33275267, published online 30 November, 2020. The authors state that "Figures 3 and 4 were used twice due to a careless mistake during the preparation of Figures". There are amendments to this paper. The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause. https://www.europeanreview.org/article/23854.
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OBJECTIVE: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a worldwide public health emergency; unfortunately, there is currently no treatment for improving outcomes or reducing viral-clearance times in infected patients. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of interferon (IFN) with or without lopinavir and ritonavir as antiviral therapeutic option for treating COVID-19 infection. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The present study enrolled 148 patients that received either standard care, treatment with IFN alfa-2b, or IFN alfa-2b combined with lopinavir plus ritonavir. Viral testing was performed using Reverse-Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). RESULTS: There was no significant difference in the viral-clearance time at 28 days after treatment between patients receiving standard care and those receiving anti-viral treatments. However, the average viral-clearance time of patients receiving standard care (14 days) was shorter than that for patients receiving IFN alfa-2b or IFN alfa-2b combined with lopinavir plus ritonavir (15.5 or 17.5 days) (p<0.05). Patients treated with IFN alfa-2b within five days or IFN alfa-2b combined with lopinavir plus ritonavir after three days of symptoms exhibited shorter viral-clearance times than the other groups (p<0.05). Moreover, viral-clearance times were significantly longer in patients receiving standard care or anti-viral treatment 5 days after symptoms appeared than those of patients who received these treatments within five days of symptom onset (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Early symptomatic treatment is most critical for maximizing amelioration of COVID-19 infection. Anti-viral treatment might have complicated effect on viral-clearance.