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Purpose: Since healthcare workers work in the same environment with infected patients, they have a higher risk in terms of COVID-19 transmission compared to other parts of society, and accordingly, they experience more stress. The aim of this study to investigate the fear of COVID-19, work stress, and affecting factors in prehospital healthcare workers. Material and Methods: The research has a descriptive and cross-sectional design. The research was completed with a total of 399 individuals. Data were collected online using an introductory information form, the Fear of COVID-19 Scale, and the General Work Stress Scale. Results: The level of fear of COVID-19 was higher in women compared to men (B=-1.451, p=0.012), in married individuals compared to singles (B=-1.667, p=0.011), in those with low income compared to those with moderate or high income (B=-2.259, p<0.001), and in those who were vaccinated compared to those who were not vaccinated (B=-1.722, p=0.005). Conclusion: In prehospital emergency healthcare workers, the fear of COVID-19 was higher among women, married individuals, those with low income, those who were COVID-19-vaccinated, and those with high levels of anxiety and depression. Those with low income, high education level, and high anxiety level had a higher level of work stress
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BACKGROUND: There is an increasing interest to improve the physical activity level of people working in offices mostly spending their time in sitting who may be under the risks of obesity. this is especially increasing its importance worldwide due to recent 'stay at home trend' of covid-19 pandemics. academicians are the group of people having tendency to develop a sedentary lifestyle and become overweight due to long sitting hours of work. thus, the aim of this study is to understand the gender differences on factors affecting the resting metabolic rate of academic personnel. MethodS: data on demographic information, Body Mass index, resting metabolic rate (rMr), physical activity levels of academicians (n.=62, 32W, 30M) have been collected. reSUltS: their total weekly energy expenditure in relation to total physical activity was similar to each other as 1743.4+/-2189.10 MET-min/week for men and 1074.04+/-1299.09 MET-min/week for women. The RMR was significantly higher in men (1994.66+/-683.41 kcal/day) than women (1467.81+/-311.47 kcal/day) (p<0.001). Supporting this outcome, percent body fat was found higher in women (26.38+/-6.62%) than men (21.46+/-6.17%) (p<0.05). Men spent longer times "sitting" (p<0.05), it had a weak effect on their total physical activity (p<0.05). conclUSionS: although women were sitting less than men during day, they were less physically active. Men were more involved with heavy to moderate physical activities with higher resting metabolic rate. Since walking was a preferred activity in both genders, they may be motivated to increase their walking based physical activity in and out of the campus as well as at home.Copyright © 2020 Edizioni Minerva Medica.
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Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the rapid increase in the number of cases during certain periods has caused a high occupancy rate in intensive care units. Faced with a sudden and rapid increase in the number of patients, a lack of medical resources or its possibility led to ethical discussions on the immediate and equitable distribution of resources in intensive care units. This has not only given impetus to the ethical debate, but many medical professional organisations in Europe have published guidelines for triage of critical care which contain ethical criteria. In this study, some of the ethical triage guides have been normatively analyzed and ethically evaluated.
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The real-Time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis using nasal swab samples is the gold standard approach for COVID-19 diagnosis. However, due to the high false-negative rate at lower viral loads and complex test procedure, PCR is not suitable for fast mass screening. Therefore, the need for a highly sensitive and rapid detection system based on easily collected fluids such as saliva during the pandemic has emerged. In this study, we present a surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) metasurface optimized with genetic algorithm (GA) to detect SARS-CoV-2 directly using unprocessed saliva samples. During the GA optimization, the electromagnetic field profiles were used to calculate the field enhancement of each structure and the fitness values to determine the performance of the generated substrates. The obtained design was fabricated using electron beam lithography, and the simulation results were compared with the test results using methylene blue fluorescence dye. After the performance of the system was validated, the SERS substrate was tested with inactivated SARS-CoV-2 virus for virus detection, viral load analysis, cross-reactivity, and variant detection using machine learning models. After the inactivated virus tests are completed, with 36 PCR positive and 33 negative clinical samples, we were able to detect the SARS-CoV-2 positive samples from Raman spectra with 95.2% sensitivity and specificity. © COPYRIGHT SPIE. Downloading of the is permitted for personal use only.
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Introduction: MIS-C is a rare complication of COVID-19 in children. The estimated incidence of laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection in individuals<21 years old was 322 per 100,000 and the incidence of MIS-C was 2 per 100,000. The initial reports of MIS-C emerged from the United Kingdom in April 2020. Since then, there have been reports of similarly affectedchildrenin otherparts of theworld, including Europe, Canada, the United States, and SouthAfrica. Whilemany children with MIS-C meet criteria for complete or incomplete Kawasaki disease (KD), the epidemiology differs from that of classic KD. This report is about the MIS-C children seen at a tertiary center in Istanbul-Turkey. Weaimed to determine prognosis by means of cardiovascular and arrhythmia assessment. Methods: We evaluated thirty-five MIS-C children who were hospitalized with COVID-19 infections through laboratory findings, electrocardiography (ECG), and transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) (March-December 2020). Patients were evaluated by the diagnostic criterias of both CDC and WHO. The differences were noted. On ECG, the risk of arrhythmia was observed by the evaluation of depolarization and repolarization parameters (such as Tp-Te interval, Tp-Te/QTc, Tp-Te/QT ratio) and by TTE, cardiac ventricle systolic and diastolic functions employing ejection fraction, fractional shortening, and Doppler parameters were studied. All coronary arteries were evaluated with TTE. Results: Mean age of the patients were 15.5±5.7 years (23 boys, 12 girls). We observed significantly increased levels fibrinogen, D-Dimer, LDH, ferritin, and IL-6 levels. There was significant changes by means of TpTe, Tp-Te/QT, andTp-Te/QTconECG.19patients hadnocoronary artery involvement, while 16 had, and three of them also had thrombosis at the time of prognosis. Patients were treated with IVIG, Metilprednisolon, Pulse steroid, asetylsalicylic acid(anti-inflammatory and anti-thrombotic doses), clexane, and heparinization that depends on the course of the disease. Ten patients had inotropic support. Conclusions: The thought that children are less affected by COVID-19 may be a misconception after the diagnosis of MISC. There are a lot of unknowns about COVID-19 and MIS-C. Therefore, one should be alert while evaluating a child with COVID-19 infection, because of sudden clinical detoriation of MIS-C patients.
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Objective: The aim of this cross-sectional study. To draw attention to the importance of vitamin D supplementation in the treatment and prognosis of COVID-19 patients, to make a scientific contribution to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: With the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic, patients who came to our hospital in the last 18 months and had the COVID-19 test were screened. The test result is positive or negative;413 patients whose vitamin D (ng / ml) levels were examined were included in the study. Vitamin D (ng / ml) levels of 133 patients with positive COVID-19 test and 280 patients with negative COVID-19 test were compared. Results: 413 patients were included in the study. 204 (49.3%) patients were female and 209 (50.7%) patients were male. 133 (32.2%) patients were COVID-19 positive, 280 (67.8%) patients were COVID-19 negative. The mean age of COVID-19 positives was 48.4 (16.8) and the mean age of COVID-19 negatives was 45,6(17.8). The mean of vitamin D of COVID-19 positives was 19.8 (13.3), and the mean of vitamin D of COVID-19 negatives was 29.5(15.8). Of the 133 COVID-19 positive patients, 71 (%53.3) were female and 62 (%46.6) were male. Of the 286 COVID-19 negatives patients, 133 (%46.5) were female and 147 (% 53.5) were male. According to the Mann-Whitney test, the mean rank of COVID-19 negatives is 235.7, and the mean rank of positives is 146.4. Z-score was -7.11, p-score was 0.00. Conclusions: The main finding of this cross-sectional study conducted in our hospital is;COVID-19 positive patients have lower serum vitamin D than COVID-19 negative patients. This new finding provides a scientific basis for vitamin D replacement in COVID-19 patients. © 2022 A. CARBONE Editore. All rights reserved.
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Background: Covid-19 has turned into a great pandemic that surrounds the whole world and exposes individuals to a physically inactive state, and as a result, has many negative effects together. Aim: The purpose of this research is to investigate physical activity behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic process, and also to offer specific suggestions for improving the physical activity and health-related physical fitness of individuals. Methods: Our research is a review research in which many studies examining the changes in physical activity behaviors of people during the pandemic period are examined. Results: According to the research results;It was observed that individuals living in urban centers were less physically active than before the pandemic and their health-related physical fitness developed negatively during the pandemic process, while some individuals living in rural areas had an increase in their physical activity levels. It has been observed that physical activity levels have also decreased, especially since individuals living in urban life cannot reach many opportunities they have reached before due to the pandemic and have to stay at home due to the restrictions imposed by the governments. Conclusion: In our research, various suggestions were made for indoor and outdoor activities that can be done at home and in rural recreation areas in these and similar situations, and it was tried to help individuals to maintain the continuity of physical activity behaviors and to develop health-related physical fitness elements.
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Spontaneous pneumomediastinum is a rare and life-threatening complication in patients with COVID-19. Although there are a few reports of spontaneous pneumomediastinum related to COVID-19 in literature, most involve patients who have been followed up in intensive care units (ICUs) or COVID-19 clinics for a period due to mild to severe COVID-19 disease. We present here a case of spontaneous pneumomediastinum that developed in an asymptomatic COVID-19 patient with no medical history.
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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic affects the whole world in many ways. In an effort to slow down the infection, physical distancing and isolation policies have been implemented in Turkey, likewise the rest of the world. Thereby, rheumatic diseases require to obey the self-isolation recommendations strictly due to general vulnerability to infections in those patients. Due to the precautions taken for isolation, the physical inactivity level of the patients which would affect the disease activity has increased (1). Objectives: The primary purpose of this study was to assess the exercise compliance and clinical status of the patients with rheumatic diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic. The secondary aim of the study was to evaluate the physical activity level and quality of life of the patients during the pandemic. Methods: The research is a cross-sectional study. Seventy-nine patients with various rheumatic diseases were included in the study. Standard questions were used to evaluate the exercise habits, the level of pain and morning stiffness and severity of exacerbations. Pain and morning stiffness levels and attack severity were scored on a numerical rating scale (NRS) (0-10;with 0 indicating no pain/stiffness and 10 severe pain/stiffness). Attack duration was recorded in number of exacerbated days. Parameters were compared before and after the pandemic with Paired Samples T Test. The International Physical Activity Questionnaire-Short Form (IPAQ) and Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) Questionnaire were filled to assess the physical activity level and quality of life. Results: Twenty-eight percent of the patients were diagnosed with Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF), 37% were Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS), 14% were Systemic Sclerosis (ScS) 14% were Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), 6% were Rheumatoid Arthritis, 1% were Primary Sjogren Syndrome (PSS). Less than half of the patients (46%) did continue exercising regularly during the pandemic and 30 (81%) of them performed only the exercises given by the therapist while 7 (9%) of them tried different exercise types from another source. The reason for discontinuation to exercising expressed by the incompliant patients were mostly unwillingness (17 of 37 patients). Pain, morning stiffness and number of attacks were better during the pandemic compared to before however, a statistically significant difference was found only for morning stiffness (p = .036). The results of IPAQ showed that the majority of the patients (n: 48) were physically inactive, while only 2 patients were active during the pandemic. The most deteriorated quality of life subcategory was energy level of the patients according to the NHP scores. Conclusion: This study results showed that patients with rheumatic diseases stayed physically inactive during the pandemic and the disease status has also been affected negatively. As the duration of the pandemic prolongs, levels of physical inactivity would increase and the progressive physical inactivity is expected to worsen patients' symptoms more. However, as the pandemic appears to continue, face-to-face exercise therapy should still be avoided. For all those reasons above, alternative ways of therapy like tele-rehabilitation would come onto stage to cope with the increasing physical inactivity of the rheumatic patients.
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In the international markets, financial variables can be volatile and may affect each other, especially in the crisis times. COVID-19, which began in China in 2019 and spread to many countries of the world, created a crisis not only in the global health system but also in the international financial markets and economy. The purpose of this study is to analyze the contagious effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the volatility of selected financial variables such as Bitcoin, gold, oil price, and exchange rates and the connections between the volatilities of these variables during the pandemic. For this aim, we use the ARMA-EGARCH model to measure the impact of volatility and shocks. In other words, it is aimed to measure whether the impact of the shock on the financial variables of the contagiousness of the epidemic is also transmitted to the markets. The data was collected from secondary and daily data from September 2th 2019 to December 20th, 2020. It can be said that the findings obtained have statistically significant effects on the conditional variability of the variables. Therefore, there are findings that the shocks in the market are contaminated with each other. © Copyright: The Author(s) This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Aim: The aim of this study is to identify the frequency of stroke among severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) cases in Sakarya city, to find out the clinical characteristics of patients diagnosed with stroke and to contribute to the national database. Material and Methods: This retrospective study was carried out with 783 cases diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 between April-June 2020 at the pandemic hospital in Sakarya city. Patients were compared in terms of age, National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), risk factors, radiological findings, inpatient treatment, intubation, and mortality rates. Results: Out of 26 cases of ischemic stroke, 11 (42.3%) were male and 15 (57.7%) were female. In terms of infarction localization, the cause was medial cerebral artery (MCA) in 4 (15.4%) patients, top of the basilar in 2 (7.7%) patients, basilar artery in 1 (3.8%) patient, lacunar in 9 (34.6%) patients and anterior system in 10 (38.5%) patients. There was no significant difference in terms of D-dimer and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels according to disease severity (both p=0.262). Three (0.38%) patients presented with stroke findings and were diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2. Cryptogenic stroke was detected in 8 (30.8%) of the SARS-CoV-2 cases. Stroke frequency was calculated as 3.3% among the SARS-CoV-2 cases in Sakarya city. Conclusion: This is the first study to identify the frequency of stroke among SARS-CoV-2 patients in Sakarya city and Turkey. Our study is important as it shows that preventing or treating ischemic stroke in SARS-CoV-2 cases contributes greatly to the reduction of mortality. © 2020, Duzce University Medical School. All rights reserved.