Global trends in the research and development of medical/pharmaceutical wastewater treatment over the half-century.

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted public health and the worldwide economy. The overstretched operation of health systems around the world is accompanied by potential and ongoing environmental threats. At present, comprehensive scientific assessments of research on temporal changes in medical/pharmaceutical wastewater (MPWW), as well as estimations of researcher networks and scientific productivity are lacking. Therefore, we conducted a thorough literature study, using bibliometrics to reproduce research on medical wastewater over nearly half a century. Our primary goal is systematically to map the evolution of keyword clusters over time, and to obtain the structure and credibility of clusters. Our secondary objective was to measure research network performance (country, institution, and author) using CiteSpace and VOSviewer. We extracted 2306 papers published between 1981 and 2022. The co-cited reference network identified 16 clusters with well-structured networks (Q = 0.7716, S = 0.896). The main trends were as follows: 1) Early MPWW research prioritized sources of wastewater, and this cluster was considered to be the mainstream research frontier and direction, representing an important source and priority research area. 2) Mid-term research focused on characteristic contaminants and detection technologies. Particularly during 2000-2010, a period of rapid developments in global medical systems, pharmaceutical compounds (PhCs) in MPWW were recognized as a major threat to human health and the environment. 3) Recent research has focused on novel degradation technologies for PhC-containing MPWW, with high scores for research on biological methods. Wastewater-based epidemiology has emerged as being consistent with or predictive of the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases. Therefore, the application of MPWW in COVID-19 tracing will be of great interest to environmentalists. These results could guide the future direction of funding agencies and research groups.

Mental health status of students' parents during COVID-19 pandemic and its influence factors.

BACKGROUND: During the outbreak of COVID-19, the national policy of home quarantine may affect the mental health of parents. However, few studies have investigated the mental health of parents during the COVID-19 pandemic. AIMS: To investigate the depression, anxiety and stress of the students' parents during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to explore the influence factors, especially the influence of social support and family-related factors. METHODS: The Generalised Anxiety Disorder-7, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Perceived Stress Scale-10 and Social Support Rating Scale were applied to 1163 parents to measure the parents' depression, anxiety, stress and social support. RESULTS: (1) The detection rates of depression and anxiety in parents were 6.1% and 4.0%. The depression, anxiety and perceived stress of parents in central China were significantly higher than those in non-central China. The anxiety of college students' parents was lower than that of parents of the primary, middle and high school students. The depression, anxiety and perceived stress of parents with conflicts in the family were significantly higher than those with a harmonious family. Other factors that influence parents' depression, anxiety and perceived stress include marital satisfaction, social support, parents' history of mental illness and parenting style, etc. (2) The regression analysis results showed that perceived stress, social support, marital satisfaction, family conflicts, child's learning stage as well as parents' history of mental illness had significant effects on parents' anxiety and depression. CONCLUSION: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the mental health of parents was affected by a variety of factors. Good marital relationships, good social support, family harmony and parents without a history of mental illness may be protective factors for parents' mental health, while perceived stress and child in middle or high school are risk factors for parents' mental health.

Retrospective study on the effectiveness of a prevention strategy in a dental hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effectiveness of a prevention strategy against the spread of SARS-CoV-2 infection among dental hospital staff over a 3-month period. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The effectiveness of the prevention strategy, which adopted healthcare staff protective measures, including patient triage and correct usage of personal preventive equipment, was evaluated by SARS-CoV-2 detection and serological testing. Patients who visited the Affiliated Stomatology Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China, between January 31 and March 1 (lockdown period) and March 2 and April 27 (reopening period) in 2020 and in the same period in 2019 were included in the study. Patients' diagnosis, age, gender, and several undergoing aerosol-generating procedures during the study period were collected from the hospital's database. Corresponding data were compared year-on-year (2020-on-2019). A total of 757 hospital staff underwent SARS-CoV-2 detection and serological testing on April 28-29, 2020. RESULTS: During the lockdown and reopening period in 2020, the number of hospital visits was dramatically decreased to about 6% and 58%, respectively, compared with the same period in 2019. However, emergency visits were increased 16- and 6.4-fold. A total of at least 6654 patients (13.58%) underwent aerosol-generating procedures during the study period in the year 2020. All hospital staff were negative according to SARS-CoV-2 detection and serological testing (IgG, IgM) data. CONCLUSION: During the study period in 2020, the total number of hospital visits dramatically reduced but emergency visits significantly increased. The prevention strategy implemented successfully prevented SARS-CoV-2 infection spread among healthcare workers in a dental hospital. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: The prevention strategy indicated patient triage and how to adopt preventive measures for controlling SARS-CoV-2 spread among healthcare workers. These data can be used as a reference for other sectors suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Effectiveness and influencing factors of online education for caregivers of patients with eating disorders during COVID-19 pandemic in China.

OBJECTIVE: The goals were twofold: To estimate the depression and anxiety levels among caregivers of patients with eating disorders (ED) in China during the COVID-19 pandemic when compared with a control group, and to assess whether an online education program was effective in decreasing the anxiety and depression of the caregivers of patients with ED, and associated factors. METHOD: Caregivers of patients with ED (n = 254) and a comparison group of non-ED caregivers (N = 254) were recruited at baseline. Additionally, caregivers of patients with ED were invited into a free 4-week online education program, with an additional online group as support. Depression and anxiety levels were assessed at baseline and after the intervention. RESULTS: Caregivers of patients with ED showed significantly higher levels of depression and anxiety than the comparison group of non-ED caregivers. The online education program showed no significant effect on decreasing depression and anxiety levels of caregivers of patients with ED overall. Caregivers who had older loved ones and not living with them were more likely to decrease their depression levels. Caregivers of patients with longer illness duration were less likely to decrease their anxiety levels. DISCUSSION: These results showed that caregivers of ED patients suffered more serious psychological distress during the pandemic. A more structured and intensive online intervention with a limited number of participants might be required to address caregivers' distress in post-COVID-19 China.