Pre-pandemic Predictivity of Anxious-Depressive Symptoms in Post-surgical Traumatic Distress in Hysterectomy for Benign Disease and COVID-19 Outbreak: A Case-Control Study (preprint)

The Sars-Cov-2 pandemic led to several needed containing measures that conditioned the onset of depressive, anxiety and post-traumatic stress symptoms in population. These symptoms, espe-cially if not diagnosed and treated, can also occur in patients undergoing surgery with high im-pact on people’s lives, like hysterectomy. To evaluate the post-surgical distress and anx-ious-depressive symptoms following hysterectomy for benign disease focusing on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. The prospective observational cohort study included patients undergoing hysterectomy for benign disease. Psychologic evaluation through social-demographic question-naires was obtained before surgery (T1), postoperatively (T2), and 3 months after surgery (T3). The HADS (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale) was used to evaluate anxious-depressive symptoms and the PCL-5 (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM-5) compared the on-set of post-surgical distress and anxiety and depressive symptoms. The pre-COVID-19 pan-demic period was compared to the post-COVID-19 pandemic phase. Patients treated after COVID-19 pandemic showed higher depressive symptoms rate compared to those treated before (p-value=0.02); conversely, pre-COVID-19 patients were more prone to develop a PTSD (p-value=0.04). A significative association between the occurrence PTSD and anxiety-depressive symptoms registered at T2 a (p-value=0.007) and T3 (p-value

Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in the Obstetric Population at Admission: Results from a High-Volume Hospital Setting in the North of Italy (preprint)

Based on the strong recommendation of the World Health Organization to implement testing for SARS-CoV-2, at our Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in northeast Italy we started performing universal screening in the obstetric population prior to hospitalization. All pregnant women admitted at our department were tests for SARS-CoV-2 with a nasopharyngeal swab test based on the specific SARS-CoV-2 sequences amplification with reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay. From April 10th to May 25th (45 days), 473 women were tested, and 2 (0.42%) out of 473 patients were found positive to SARS-CoV-2 during the first three weeks when the numbers of infection were higher and social contacts reduced. No patients reported either respiratory or gastrointestinal symptoms. After comparison with other reports, our results suggest a reduction in the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in the obstetric population related to both the trend over time and space of the infection spread and the effect of control measures. The identification of only asymptomatic patients appears supporting the implementation of universal screening instead of a test performed based on anamnestic information or symptoms to identify patients with SARS-CoV-2.