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Aim To conduct comparative analysis of the activities of the department of vascular surgery before and during the spread of new coronavirus infection COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). Methods The analysis was performed on the number of outpatient visits of vascular surgeon for types of diagnosis, number and type of surgeries performed at the inpatient facilities of the LLC "Grand Medica" over 2019 (whole year) and 2020 (quarterly). Results Significant decrease was noted in the number of visits of patients with cardiovascular diseases to vascular surgeon in the outpatient facility. The number of surgeries on limb arteries in patients among Kuzbass residents decreased by 26.4 %, among residents of other regions - by 59.5 %;in brachiocephalic arteries - by 12.5 % and 54.5 %, respectively. The number of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) in patients among Kuzbass residents increased by 25.3 %, among residents of other regions remained unchanged. Conclusion Decrease in the volume of provision of care for patients with cardiovascular diseases over 2-4 quarters of 2020 is caused by two groups of factors. The first one is associated directly to the epidemiological situation and countermeasures against the spread of SARS-CoV-2 while the second one is associated indirectly.Copyright © 2021 Russian Academy of Sciences. All right reserved.
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Combatting misinformation is an important part of the global effort to fight against COVID-19. In this paper, we first present a large-scale, publicly available dataset named COVMIS for research on COVID-19 misinformation. COVMIS was constructed to support the misinformation identification approach that mimics the act of fact checking by human for truth labelling. COVMIS is collected from November 2019 to March 2021, this dataset contains 14, 384 claims (statements), 134, 320 related articles, and many features associated with the claims such as claimants, news sources, dates, truth labels (true, partly true or false) and justifications for the truth labels. Each claim is associated with a set of related articles that were collected from reputable sources and serve as the ground truth to assess the validity of the claim. We provide statistics and a detailed analysis of the dataset, and discuss a variety of its potential use cases. Using COVMIS, we then obtained new experimental results illustrating methods that can be used to significantly improve the performance of the fact checking approach for misinformation identification. © 2022 IEEE.
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Breastfeeding during the COVID-19 pandemic is challenging. Strong intention and good knowledge on the risk and benefit of breastfeeding are important for a woman to breastfeed her child during this period. This study aims to develop and validate a Malay language questionnaire in order to measure Malaysian women's knowledge and intention about breastfeeding during the pandemic. The items were developed based on an extensive review of literature as well as breastfeeding guidelines and suggestions from experts, followed by an assessment of content and face validity that involved nine and 30 reviewers respectively. A pilot study was conducted on 90 respondents and the reliability assessment was performed using Rasch analysis. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to determine the number of latent factors within the intention dimension. Among 29 knowledge items and 36 intention items, 19 knowledge items remained with a person separation (person reliability) as well as item separation (item reliability) of 1.73(0.75) and 3.97(0.94). The final intention domain had 17 items with a person separation (person reliability) as well as item separation (item reliability) of 1.54(0.70) and 3.87(0.94). Three latent factors were identified within the intention questionnaire. The final 17 items explained 53.7% of the variance with an overall Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy of 0.70, χ2 = 623.40 (136), p<0.001. Using the framework of the theory of planned behaviour, the drafted questionnaire is reliable and valid based on the Rasch measurement model to measure the knowledge and intention about breastfeeding during an infection outbreak. © 2022, Malaysian Journal of Public Health Medicine. All Rights Reserved.
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The purpose of this study was to examine the compliance of MSME actors with micro, small and medium financial accounting standards (SAK EMKM) and their determinants and implications for financial performance. This study uses additional analysis by testing the sub-sample of MSMEs with large and small assets. The object of this research in Indonesian MSMEs using primary data distributed to respondents is 8,856.097. Hypothesis testing using regression analysis method. The results prove that MSMEs in Indonesia have not met SAK EMKM. This shows that MSMEs have not used the applicable standards for the management of MSMEs in Indonesia, especially in the preparation of financial reports. Other evidence that MSMEs do not understand or are not ready to implement SAK EMKM;This evidence shows that MSME actors do not understand the importance of issuing SAK EMKM. Other results, costs and benefits, quality of information, and socialization have a positive effect on the level of compliance with SAK EMKM. The test results of the sub-sample with large assets that affect SAK EMKM compliance are the quality of information and socialization, while the sub-sample of small assets proves the costs and benefits, and socialization. The difference between the test results and the sub-samples is due to the different samples. Limitations/implications of this study, namely focusing on MSMEs in Indonesia by not conducting direct interviews with samples due to the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022, SRAC - Romanian Society for Quality. All rights reserved.
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This study aims to develop a website-based assessment application to improve teacher performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. They are using research methods with a quantitative approach. Data collection techniques were carried out by distributing questionnaires via a google form. The participants involved were 100 teachers throughout West Java. The media expert validation test results show that the application has an excellent feasibility level with a percentage of 84%. Material expert validation gets a ratio of 85%. The user expert validity level receives a rate of 93%. The cumulative results from the three experts obtained a validity percentage of 87% and were included in the excellent category so that the Web-based assessment application was feasible to use. Paired sample t-test analysis showed that the application of the application could increase the effectiveness of the assessment with a t-test value (p = 0.000, n (100) = 15.569, <0.05). This research contributes so that teachers and parents can carry out assessment activities continuously.
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Objective: The rising burden of stroke in Malaysia has prompted attention on the primary caregivers of stroke survivors. Caregiving burden following stroke is a significant health care concern, however, the assessment of caregiving burden is understudied in Malaysia. This study aims to measure the informal stroke caregivers' burden one month after the patients were discharged from the stroke care. Methods: Acute stroke survivors and their informal caregivers were recruited from three major hospitals in the northeast of Peninsula Malaysia. To minimize the risk of direct contact during the COVID-19 pandemic, the caregivers who fulfilled study criteria were interviewed by phone. Information obtained included caregiver's demographic, self-reported caregiver burden measured using two commonly used tools, namely the Malay version Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI) and The Malay version Caregiver Assessment of Function and Upset (CAFU). ZBI consists of 22 questions and CAFU has a 15-item multidimensional measure of dependence. We measured ZBI and CAFU scores twice, one at baseline (post-discharge) and another one month later. The scores were presented as mean and standard deviation (SD). Results: A total of 93 informal caregivers were recruited with 66% of them being female. Generally, the caregiving burden was reduced from discharge (baseline) to one-month post-discharge. The overall mean (SD) scores for ZBI reduced from 23.7 (SD=14.45) to 19.9 (SD=12.67). The overall mean (SD) for CAFU dependency scores reduced from 43.5 (SD=12.65) to 39.4 (SD=15.19), for CAFU upset scores reduced from 5.3 (SD=7.69) to 3.9 (SD=5.47). Between male and female caregiver, the mean ZBI reduced for 13.2% and 23.1% while the CAFU dependency score reduced from 41.7 to 39.4 and 46.4 to 39.4 respectively. Conclusion: The burden felt by the caregivers was initially high but reduced significantly even after 1- month. Any psychosocial support or intervention aimed to ease caregiver burden should be started early.
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Background: The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (coronavirus disease [COVID-19]) is a global pandemic since December 2019. Cytokine release syndrome is a promising etiology for the severe manifestations of COVID-19. Along with viral invasion of cellular immunity, cytokine storm plays an important role in disease progression. For tackling the immune response, immunomodulators play an important role. Various studies have reported that there has been a decrease in IL-6 level, C-reactive protein (CRP) level, and lower risk of death with the use of tocilizumab in patients with severe COVID-19 disease. Aims and Objectives: Our study aimed to investigate the association between tocilizumab exposure and outcome among COVID-19 patients in a dedicated COVID hospital. The objectives of the study were to assess the clinical outcome in COVID-19 in terms of death and discharge as well as to compare the total leukocyte count, CRP, lactate dehydrogenase, creatine kinase MB, and D-Dimer before and after the administration of tocilizumab. Materials and Methods: After obtaining ethics committee approval, we included 41 patients who received injection tocilizumab. After going through all the records, we entered the data in the Microsoft Excel sheet and assessed the data with the use of statistical analysis of Microsoft Excel. Results: Out of 41 patients, 19 patients were discharged and 22 patients did not survive. The laboratory investigations showed significant improvement after the administration of tocilizumab. Conclusion: Tocilizumab use has shown improvement in the laboratory investigations, but the clinical outcome did not show significant results.
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The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework is crucial for every educators and teachers when dealing with teaching and learning by using technology. There are three essential components of TPACK which have to be fully mastered in order to conduct any teaching and learning session via whatever technological means and platforms, especially in the current situation of COVID-19 pandemic which requires the teacher to adapt with suitable teaching and learning remote strategies including online assessment. This study is conducted to investigate the level of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) skill among Arabic school teachers in preparing online assessment for remote teaching and learning prior to a training workshop organized by the Malaysian branch of Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, ICESCO-KUIS and Islamic Education Unit, Ministry of Education, Malaysia. The main author has been conducting the TPACK training module among 56 Arabic school teachers in Johor, Malaysia on 5-6 October, 2020 from selected all districts, while only 40 of them responded to the survey after the workshop via Google Form. Moreover, all participants were responding concurrently to the open-ended survey during the workshop via Mentimeter.com. This research instruments were investigating the teachers' knowledge about three essential components of TPACK, which include technology, content, and pedagogy as well their suggestions and feedbacks towards employing online assessment and effectiveness of conducted workshop. The findings are expected in contributing towards the understanding of the teacher's level of knowledge in technology, pedagogy, and content among Arabic school teachers in Malaysia especially for online teaching and assessment. The study may also beneficial to other similar settings where the technology has not been effectively utilized by teachers in schools.
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Background: The COVID-19 outbreak was induced by a novel coronavirus initially discovered in Wuhan, Hubei province of China, in December 2019. The frontline anesthesiologists working in intensive care units at quarantine hospitals are under tremendous pressure and at risk of contracting COVID-19 since the beginning of the quarantine. This overwhelming situation can make them prone to psychological stress and burnout. Materials and Methods: We did self - administered questionnaire-based observational cross-sectional study that sent by e-mail to Egyptian anesthesiologists. Objectives: The objectives were to measure levels of stress and burnout in frontline anesthesiologists working at ICU of the quarantine hospitals ICU during the current COVID-19 outbreak and to investigate the potential sociodemographic features, job characteristics, and working conditions associated with distress among anesthesiologists. Results: Of 150 participants, continuous working shift for 2 weeks, young age, and lack of support during work time were significantly associated with higher stress scores with increased values ranged from 2.5 points for lack of support to 3.7 for continuous work shift. As for burnout, continuous working shift for 2 weeks, young age, and having duties all shift time were significantly associated with higher burnout score with increased values ranged from 1.1 for high duties to 3.7 for continuous work shift. Conclusion: Stress and burnout among anesthesiologists were caused by the continuous work regime, overloaded work, and lack of support. Identifying the triggering factors during this study with targeted interventions and psychosocial support will help to change the environment of the work to minimize the sources of stress.