ABSTRACT
Healthcare professionals who work in front-line situations are among those under the highest risk of presenting negative mental health indicators. We sought to assess the prevalence of low personal realization, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization as well as probable non-psychotic psychiatric pathologies during the pandemic in nursing assistants in the city of Huelva (Spain), and to study the association between these mental health indicators and sociodemographic and professional variables. A cross-sectional descriptive investigation with a quantitative approach was used. A representative sample of these professionals, consisting of 29 men and 284 women, completed the GHQ-12 questionnaire, including sociodemographic data and the MBI-HSS questionnaire, collecting information on situations of contact with SARS-CoV-2. Data analysis was conducted, and correlations were established. We found that emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and probable non-psychotic, psychiatric pathologies were related to contact with SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, personal realization, depersonalization and emotional exhaustion were related to just gender. We conclude that nursing assistants from public hospitals in the city of Huelva who had contact with patients with SARS-CoV-2 in the workplace, showed poor mental health indicators than those who did not come into contact with infected individuals.
ABSTRACT
A systematic review of the literature was conducted to analyse the factors that affect the probability of the paediatric asthma population suffering from COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2, such as asthma phenotypes, inhaled corticosteroids, and the effects of lockdown. This systematic review was based on PRISMA guidelines. A bibliographic search was conducted using BNE, BVS (LILAC), CSIC (IME, ISOC), IBECS, Scielo, Scopus, Medline, and PubMed, using the following search profile: (COVID-19 or 2019-NCOV or SARS-CoV-2 or COV-19) AND asthma AND (children or adolescents or youths or children or teenagers). The results were limited to those articles published between December 2019 and December 2020, selecting only articles published in Spanish, English and French that included the study population (children aged 0-18 years). Among the 1066 results of the bibliographic search and seven articles selected from a manual search, only 19 articles were found to fit our eligibility criteria. Most of the articles highlight the effects of lockdown on the paediatric asthma population, increased therapeutic compliance, and the role of inhaled corticosteroids and intrinsic factors such as ACE2 receptors as causes of the decreased prevalence of COVID-19 among the paediatric asthma population. This population has unique characteristics that serve as protective factors against COVID-19. The safety measures implemented during the lockdown period along with inhaled corticosteroid treatment also contributed to this protection.