Mental health of healthcare workers during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands : Maaike van der Noordt

Purpose In March 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Previous virus outbreaks, such as the SARS outbreak in 2003, appeared to have a great impact on the mental health of healthcare workers. The aim of this paper is to study to what extent mental health of healthcare workers differed from non-healthcare workers during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods We used data from a large-scale longitudinal online survey conducted by the Corona Behavioral Unit in the Netherlands. Eleven measurement rounds were analyzed, from April 2020 to March 2021 (N = 16,657;number of observations=64,316). Mental health, as measured by the 5-item Mental Health Inventory, was compared between healthcare workers and non-healthcare workers over time, by performing linear GEE-analyses. Results Mental health scores were higher among healthcare workers compared to non-healthcare workers during the first year of the pandemic (1.29 on a 0-100 scale;95%-CI=0.75-1.84). During peak periods of the pandemic, with over 100 hospital admissions or over 25 ICU admissions per day and subsequently more restrictive measures, mental health scores were observed to be lower in both healthcare workers and non-healthcare workers. Conclusions During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, we observed no relevant difference in mental health between healthcare workers and non-healthcare workers in the Netherlands. To be better prepared for another pandemic, future research should investigate which factors hinder and which factors support healthcare workers to maintain a good mental health. Key messages • During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, we observed no relevant difference in mental health between healthcare workers and non-healthcare workers in the Netherlands. • During peak periods of the pandemic, mental health was observed to be poorer in both healthcare workers and non-healthcare workers.

PrEP Use, Sexual Behaviour, and PrEP Adherence Among Men who have Sex with Men Living in Wales Prior to and During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

We examined PrEP use, condomless anal sex (CAS), and PrEP adherence among men who have sex with men (MSM) attending sexual health clinics in Wales, UK. In addition, we explored the association between the introduction of measures to control transmission of SARS-CoV-2 on these outcomes. We conducted an ecological momentary assessment study of individuals in receipt of PrEP in Wales. Participants used an electronic medication cap to record PrEP use and completed weekly sexual behaviour surveys. We defined adherence to daily PrEP as the percentage of CAS episodes covered by daily PrEP (preceded by ≥ 3 days of PrEP and followed by ≥ 2 days). Sixty participants were recruited between September 2019 and January 2020. PrEP use data prior to the introduction of control measures were available over 5785 person-days (88%) and following their introduction 7537 person-days (80%). Data on CAS episodes were available for 5559 (85%) and 7354 (78%) person-days prior to and following control measures respectively. Prior to the introduction of control measures, PrEP was taken on 3791/5785 (66%) days, there were CAS episodes on 506/5559 (9%) days, and 207/406 (51%) of CAS episodes were covered by an adequate amount of daily PrEP. The introduction of pandemic-related control measures was associated with a reduction in PrEP use (OR 0.44, 95%CI 0.20-0.95), CAS (OR 0.35, 95%CI 0.17-0.69), and PrEP adherence (RR = 0.55, 95%CI 0.34-0.89) and this may have implications for the health and wellbeing of PrEP users and, in addition to disruption across sexual health services, may contribute to wider threats across the HIV prevention cascade.

Impact of COVID-19 on initial treatment of breast and colorectal cancers in one integrated healthcare system

Background: There has been a significant decline in office visits and cancer screening interventions such as mammograms and colonoscopies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study is to analyze treatment patterns and to identify if there was also a delay in time to treatment for breast and colorectal cancers diagnosed during the pandemic. Methods: We utilized a dataset linking the institutional tumor registry and electronic health records from a large ambulatory group practice in Northern California. We analyzed data from 1,047 patients with newly diagnosed breast and colorectal cancers between 1/2019 and 8/2020 who received care at Sutter HealthPalo Alto Medical Foundation until 12/2020. We performed a T-test to examine whether patterns of treatment status (surgery vs chemotherapy vs neither) and time-totreatment are different in pre-COVID vs pandemic eras. Results: The proportion of patients who did not receive surgery or chemotherapy during the pandemic was significantly higher, compared to the pre-COVID era (34.5% vs. 13.0%, p < 0.01). Among the breast and colorectal cancer patients who received care, the time to initial treatment did not significantly vary in the pre-COVID (median 34 days, mean 36.8 days) era as compared to during the pandemic (median 30 days, mean 32.2 days) (p = 0.15). There was no difference when accounting for surgery (p = 0.15) vs chemotherapy (p = 0.52) as the initial treatment modality. A statistically significant difference was seen amongst the 888 breast cancer cases identified during the study period, but the mean time to treatment during the pandemic (31 days) was actually shorter than the mean time to treatment identified prior to the pandemic (38 days). This difference in breast cancer time to treatment was mainly driven by a statistically shorter time to surgery (p = 0.04) in the pandemic era with no statistically significant difference in time to chemotherapy following a breast cancer diagnosis in the pandemic era as compared to the pre-COVID era (p = 0.99). Conclusions: There was a significant difference in the number of patients who did not receive surgery or chemotherapy during the pandemic for newly diagnosed breast and colorectal cancers. However, amongst those patients who did receive treatment, there were no significant delays observed in time to initial treatment, regardless of treatment modality.