Perceived stress, coping style and burnout of Chinese nursing students in late-stage clinical practice: A cross-sectional study.

AIM: The aim of this study was to examine the levels of stress, coping style and burnout among Chinese nursing students in late-stage clinical practice and to identify their relationships. BACKGROUND: High stress, passive coping and burnout among nursing students in late-stage clinical practice may contribute to severe psychological consequences. DESIGN: A descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted in November and December 2020. METHODS: Participants completed the Perceived Stress Scale, Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire and Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Service Survey to examine their stress levels, coping style and burnout. Intention to leave the profession was also assessed. RESULTS: Approximately 36.1 % of nursing students experienced emotional exhaustion and 85.3 % of nursing students perceived themselves to have moderate to high stress levels. A positive coping style can protect nursing students from depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment. High stress and passive coping style predicted emotional exhaustion. Passive coping style and high stress were significant factors leading to intention to quit nursing education before graduation. CONCLUSIONS: Lowering the level of stress and using positive coping behaviors may help students during late internship to mitigate burnout and avoid leaving nursing education. Therefore, nurse educators and clinical nursing mentors need to consider developing strategies and interventions to reduce the decline in nursing students entering nursing education and prevent burnout.

Rapid Assessment of Binding Affinity of SARS-COV-2 Spike Protein to the Human Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2 Receptor and to Neutralizing Biomolecules Based on Computer Simulations.

SARS-CoV-2 infects humans and causes Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The S1 domain of the spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 binds to human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) via its receptor-binding domain, while the S2 domain facilitates fusion between the virus and the host cell membrane for entry. The spike glycoprotein of circulating SARS-CoV-2 genomes is a mutation hotspot. Some mutations may affect the binding affinity for hACE2, while others may modulate S-glycoprotein expression, or they could result in a virus that can escape from antibodies generated by infection with the original variant or by vaccination. Since a large number of variants are emerging, it is of vital importance to be able to rapidly assess their characteristics: while changes of binding affinity alone do not always cause direct advantages for the virus, they still can provide important insights on where the evolutionary pressure is directed. Here, we propose a simple and cost-effective computational protocol based on Molecular Dynamics simulations to rapidly screen the ability of mutated spike protein to bind to the hACE2 receptor and selected neutralizing biomolecules. Our results show that it is possible to achieve rapid and reliable predictions of binding affinities. A similar approach can be used to perform preliminary screenings of the potential effects of S-RBD mutations, helping to prioritize the more time-consuming and expensive experimental work.

Neutralizing Antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 Selected from a Human Antibody Library Constructed Decades Ago.

Combinatorial antibody libraries not only effectively reduce antibody discovery to a numbers game, but enable documentation of the history of antibody responses in an individual. The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has prompted a wider application of this technology to meet the public health challenge of pandemic threats in the modern era. Herein, a combinatorial human antibody library constructed 20 years before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is used to discover three highly potent antibodies that selectively bind SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and neutralize authentic SARS-CoV-2 virus. Compared to neutralizing antibodies from COVID-19 patients with generally low somatic hypermutation (SHM), these three antibodies contain over 13-22 SHMs, many of which are involved in specific interactions in their crystal structures with SARS-CoV-2 spike receptor binding domain. The identification of these somatically mutated antibodies in a pre-pandemic library raises intriguing questions about the origin and evolution of these antibodies with respect to their reactivity with SARS-CoV-2.