Perceived Stress, Hope, and Health Outcomes Among Medical Staff in China During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This study investigated the buffering role of hope between perceived stress and health outcomes among front-line medical staff treating patients with suspected COVID-19 infection in Shenzhen, China. In the cross-sectional study with online questionnaires, medical staff's perceived stress, anxiety, depression, sleep quality, and hope were measured by the 10-item Chinese Perceived Stress Scale, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and the Locus-of-Hope Scale, respectively. A total of 319 eligible front-line medical staff participated. The prevalence of anxiety (29.70%), depression (28.80%), poor sleep quality (38.90%) indicated that a considerable proportion of medical staff experienced mood and sleep disturbances during the COVID-19 pandemic. Internal locus-of-hope significantly moderated the effects of stress on anxiety, depression, and sleep quality. Moreover, external family locus-of-hope and external peer locus-of-hope significantly moderated the association between perceived stress and depression. The prevalence of symptoms indicates that both mental and physical health outcomes of front-line medical staff deserve more attention. Internal and external locus-of-hope functioned differently as protective factors for medical staffs' health and might be promising targets for intervention.

Love pets, love their owners? - the transmission effect of consumers' warmth perception of pet images on B & B

Due to changes in consumption trends, the pet economy(e.g., buying, feeding, and caring for pets) has emerged in recent years. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers have become eager to alleviate stress and anxiety through interactions with animals. Consumer interest in adopting pets is growing, along with a surge in the adoption rate. The rapid rise of the pet economy has also fueled the development of related industries, such as the food industry, medical industry, and Internet industry. Therefore, integrating pets into consumer experience and marketing communication has received increasing attention. Pets can give people a warm feeling. In the hospitality industry, it is important for service personnel to make customers feel at home. Previous studies have mainly focused on how to improve the service quality of employees to make customers feel more warmth from the perspective of human characteristics(e.g., expression, appearance). However, in the current context of the pet economy, pets, cute, warm and therapeutic, have been applied to the hospitality industry. They bring customers a novel accommodation experience as housekeepers. What if these clues of warmth are shown to consumers in advance in the marketing process of B&B? Can they influence consumers' attitudes? In other words, in the online marketing of B&B, can pets be used as a carrier of warmth to transfer consumers' warm perception of pets to warm impressions of service personnel, and can pet images become a key clue to influence consumers' consumption decisions? If so, what is the mechanism?At present, academic research in this area is still insufficient. Against this background, three experiments were designed to verify the warmth transmission effect of pets, as well as its psychological mechanism(i.e., perceived social presence) and the boundary condition(i.e., an individual's attitude towards pets). In experiment 1, text material was used to conduct a simulation experiment. Differences in customers' perception of the warmth attribute of the B&B host(main service personnel of B&B) under two conditions(with and without cute pet images) were compared to verify the main effect that pet images have a positive impact on consumers' perception of the warmth of the B&B host. In experiment 2, a situational experiment was conducted with pictures of pet dogs to verify the main effect again. Meanwhile, the internal mechanism of the pet warmth transmission effect was also analyzed. The study revealed the mediating effect of perceived social presence. In experiment 3, it was found that the boundary condition of the pet warmth transmission effect is consumers' different attitudes towards pets after replacing pictures of pet dogs with those of cats. To conclude,firstly, compared with pictures of the B&B environment without pets, those with pets can enhance the customer's warmth perception of the host. Additionally, the increase in perceived social presence is the key psychological mechanism of the pet warmth transmission effect. Finally, the more positive the attitude of consumers toward pets, the more likely they can perceive the evidence of the social presence of the B&B host and improve their perception of the warmth impression of the host. Unlike previous studies from the perspective of individual characteristics of service personnel, this paper took pets, the appendage of service providers, as the research object to explore the influence of pets on customers' impression and perception of the B&B host. Also, it revealed the internal mechanism and boundary condition of the warmth transmission effect. These findings provide B&B operators with a fresh marketing perspective and have practical significance in promoting the integration of the pet economy and hospitality industry.

Awe experience trigged by fighting against COVID-19 promotes prosociality through increased feeling of connectedness and empathy

The promoter of prosocial behavior in fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic needs to be examined. Here, we examined the effect of experienced awe through cross-sectional (Study 1), a 3-wave longitudinal (Study 2) and experimental (Study 3–4) approaches. Study 1 showed that dispositional awe positively predicted one’s prosocial behavior in the pandemic (N = 1281). Study 2 (N = 332) observed that experienced awe predicted higher prosociality, and this relationship was serially mediated by connectedness and empathy. Study 3 (N = 153) and 4 (N = 156) confirmed that elicited awe, compared to that of amusement and neutrality, promoted multiple types of prosociality (Study 3) and willingness of blood donation (Study 4) via serial mediation of connectedness and empathy. These findings suggest that the experience of awe increases one’s connectedness to the world, which in turn enhances empathic concern and prosociality in pandemic fighting. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Positive Psychology is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease Have Higher Acute Kidney Injury Morbidity than those without after SARS-CoV-2 Infection

Background and Objectives: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) and acute kidney injury (AKI) increase the risk of serious disease and mortality in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2)-infected patients. This study evaluated the occurrence and outcome of AKI in CKD and non-CKD patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. Subjects and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the medical records of 845 patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection regarding the occurrence and outcome of AKI in a coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19)-designated hospital in Wuhan, China, from December 31, 2019, to March 20, 2020. Results: Of the 845 COVID-19 patients, 91 had CKD and 754 had no CKD (non-CKD), of whom 22 and 14 developed AKI, respectively. Finally, 36 patients were included in the analysis. Older patients and those with cardiovascular or cerebrovascular diseases were more likely to develop AKI. More CKD patients progressed to critical illness (72.73%) than non-CKD patients (57.14%), but the degree of AKI in CKD patients was lesser than that in non-CKD patients. Higher urea nitrogen, creatinine, and proteinuria levels were observed in CKD patients. More non-CKD patients were treated with human albumin than CKD patients. The survival probability of CKD patients was lower than that of non-CKD patients, but it was not statistically significant. Conclusion: There were significant differences in the incidence rate of AKI after SARS-CoV-2 infection between CKD and non-CKD patients, and the clinical manifestations and treatments of AKI also differed. These results highlight the necessity of variable treatment methods for optimal clinical management.

Evaluation of enterovirus nucleic acids detection method based on ultra-fast real-time fluorescence RT-PCR technology-A pilot study.

The outbreak of COVID-19 epidemic has enabled the establishment and application of various rapid detection methods. It is particularly important to establish a fast and accurate detection method for enterovirus, which will be beneficial for clinical diagnosis, epidemic prevention and control, and timely traceability. Through establishing an ultra-fast reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) equipment, this study aimed to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the testing method of enterovirus nucleic acids based on ultra-fast real-time fluorescence RT-PCR technology. A total of 61 cases were sampled, which were then transported and preserved. After the nucleic acid extraction, the nucleic acids of the same sample were tested with the enterovirus nucleic acid detection kit produced by Guangzhou Da An Gene Company and the ultra-fast RT-PCR equipment system established in this study. ABI7500Fast and Ahram biosystems S1 fast equipment were used for amplification detection. If the sample had an S-shaped amplification curve in the FAM channel and the Ct value ≤40.00, the result was positive. The sensitivity, precision, and accuracy of the detection method were then verified. This study established a novel testing method to achieve enterovirus nucleic acid detection within 24 min. The sensitivity detection limit of the method was 1.0 × 102 copies/ml. The coefficients of variation for repeated detection of the high, medium, and low concentration samples were 2.644%, 1.674%, and 4.281%, respectively, with good detection repeatability. In addition, a total of 29 cases were positive by the ultra-fast RT-PCR detection method in 61 suspected samples, which was consistent with the conventional fluorescent RT-PCR method. The established rapid detection method can greatly shorten the time for providing a detection report, which may greatly improve the efficiency of diagnosis and treatment.

Clinical characteristics and outcome of hemodialysis patients with COVID-19: a large cohort study in a single Chinese center.

BACKGROUND: Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is spreading rapidly, which poses great challenges to patients on maintenance hemodialysis. Here we report the clinical features of 66 hemodialysis patients with laboratory confirmed COVID-19 infection. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, AND MEASUREMENTS: Retrospective, single-center case series of the 66 hemodialysis patients with confirmed COVID-19 from 1 January to 5 March 2020; the final date of follow-up was 25 March 2020. RESULTS: The clinical data were collected from 66 hemodialysis patients with confirmed COVID-19. The incidence of COVID-19 in our center was 11.0% (66/602), of which 18 patients died. According to different prognosis, hemodialysis patients with COVID-19 were divided into the survival and death group. A higher incidence of fever and dyspnea was found in the death group compared with the survival group. Meanwhile, patients in the death group were often accompanied by higher white blood cell count, prolonged PT time, increased D-dimer (p < .05). More patients in the death group showed hepatocytes and cardiomyocytes damage. Furthermore, logistic regression analysis suggested that fever, dyspnea, and elevated D-dimer were independent risk factors for death in hemodialysis patients with COVID-19 (OR, 1.077; 95% CI, 1.014 to 1.439; p = .044; OR, 1.146; 95% CI, 1.026 to 1.875; p = .034, OR, 4.974; 95% CI, 3.315 to 6.263; p = .007, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: The potential risk factors of fever, dyspnea, and elevated D-dimer could help clinicians to identify hemodialysis patients with poor prognosis at an early stage of COVID-19 infection.

Kidney damage in COVID-19 patients with or without chronic kidney disease: Analysis of clinical characteristics and related risk factors

COVID-19 poses more risk to patients who already suffer from other diseases, particularly respiratory disorder. In this study, we analyzed the clinical characteristics and related risk factors during hospitalization of COVID-19 patients admitted with kidney damage. A total of 102 COVID-19 patients with kidney damage [irrespective of their chronic kidney disease (CKD) history] during hospitalization were included in this study. The patients were divided into a core group and a group who developed critical illness or death. Clinical data included age, gender, length of hospitalization, clinical manifestations, medical history, hypersensitive C-reactive protein (hs -CRP), high serum creatinine, low cardiac troponin I (cTnI), and hemoglobin. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression models were used to analyze the risk factors of patients' outcome. Among the outcomes, 75 patients (73.53%) were cured, 27 (26.47%) developed to critical illness or death, 20 (19.61%) of them died. A total of 36 (4.26%) out of 845 COVID-19 patients, developed acute kidney injury (AKI). Decreased oxygen saturation, elevated hs-CRP, elevated serum creatinine, elevated cTnI, and anemia were related factors for COVID-19 patients who developed to critical illness or death (P <0.05). Decreased oxygen saturation, elevated hs-CRP and anemia were not independent factors, but elevated serum creatinine and elevated cTnI were independent factors for COVID-19 patients who developed to critical illness or death (P <0.05). Among COVID-19 patients with or without CKD but with kidney damage during hospitalization, patients with elevated serum creatinine and elevated Tnl, more likely to developed critical illness or death.