Orthodontic care in orthodontic patients during the COVID-2019 pandemic: emergency, emergency response and orthodontic treatment preference.

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to investigate the characteristics of emergencies and the requirement for emergency treatment after the suspension of orthodontic appointments. The attitude towards orthodontic treatment preference was evaluated as well, including receiving orthodontic treatment and the preference for orthodontic appliances. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: An electronic questionnaire was distributed to the patients, including 4 sections: Section 1 - demographic and basic information; Section 2 - the characteristics of emergencies and emergency treatment requirements; Section 3 - the NRS-11 for pain and Manchester Orofacial Pain Disability Scale used to evaluate the intensity of orofacial pain and disability; and Section 4 - attitudes towards receiving orthodontic treatment and appliance preference. Descriptive statistics, Pearson's chi-square test, Wilcoxon's rank-sum test and stepwise generalized linear model (GLM) were performed with significance set at P < 0.05. RESULT: Most participants' (91.61%) follow-up appointments were suspended. The emergency rate and emergency treatment requirements were not different between the fixed appliance (FA) and clear aligner (CA) groups. Patients who reported emergencies (P < 0.01) in the FA group (P < 0.05) and some emergencies in the FA (P < 0.05) suffered worse pain and disability. More FA participants preferred alternative appliances (P < 0.05) due to pain and disability (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: FA patients' emergencies caused worse pain and disability when orthodontic appointments were suspended. Pain and disability were not the causes of emergency treatment requirements. The CA group seemed to show a tendency towards orthodontic appliance preference, which was an ideal modality to weather the epidemic, combined with telemedicine.

Active Enrichment of Nanoparticles for Ultra-Trace Point-of-Care COVID-19 Detection.

Active enrichment can detect nucleic acid at ultra-low concentrations without relatively time-consuming polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which is an important development direction for future rapid nucleic acid detection. Here, we reported an integrated active enrichment platform for direct hand-held detection of nucleic acid of COVID-19 in nanoliter samples without PCR. The platform consists of a capillary-assisted liquid-carrying system for sampling, integrated circuit system for ultrasound output, and cell-phone-based surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) system. Considering the acoustic responsiveness and SERS-enhanced performance, gold nanorods were selected for biomedical applications. Functionalized gold nanorods can effectively capture and enrich biomarkers under ultrasonic aggregation. Such approaches can actively assemble gold nanorods in 1-2 s and achieved highly sensitive (6.15 × 10-13 M) SERS detection of COVID-19 biomarkers in nanoliter (10-7 L) samples within 5 min. We further demonstrated the high stability, repeatability, and selectivity of the platform, and validated its potential for the detection of throat swab samples. This simple, portable, and ultra-trace integrated active enrichment detection platform is a promising diagnostic tool for the direct and rapid detection of COVID-19.

Mental condition and function of resilience among families of frontline medical workers during COVID-19: Potential influencing factors and mediating effect.

BACKGROUND: Studying the role of psychological resilience in self-perceived stress and mental disorders among family members of medical workers can help us understand its importance in mental health care and guide us to develop psychological intervention strategies for family members of medical workers. METHODS: A total of 671 family members of medical workers were enrolled. Self-perceived stress, resilience, depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms were measured in our research. RESULTS: The prevalence of anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms among relatives of medical workers were 49.0 %, 12.2 %, and 20.3 % respectively during the COVID-19 epidemic. According to the Multivariate regression model, compared with family members of doctor, family members of nurse and medical technologists were more likely to report anxiety symptoms. Female members of medical staff were more likely to have PTSD symptoms than male counterparts; and family members of medical technologist appeared to less likely have PTSD symptoms than family members of either doctor or nurse. The mediation analysis confirmed that mental resilience mediated the relationship between self-perceived stress and anxiety symptoms. LIMITATIONS: Single cross-sectional study design without the follow-up comparative analysis, only self-reported measurements were adopted, and inadequate pre-set demographic variables. CONCLUSIONS: To the best of our knowledge, our study firstly demonstrated the risk of psychological distress present in the family members of medical providers during the COVID-19 epidemic. Meanwhile, our findings highlighted the importance of mental resilience in family members of frontline medical workers as it mediated the relationship between self-perceived stress and anxiety symptoms.

Integrated microdroplet array platform with temperature controller and micro-stirring for ultra-fast SARS-CoV-2 detection.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has created a huge challenge to global health systems. Experience in fighting the epidemic shows that the development of a rapid and sensitive POCT diagnostic platform for SARS-CoV-2 that can be deployed in situ is crucial to contain the outbreak. Here, we have developed a portable microdroplet detection platform that integrated temperature controller and micro-stirring for high-throughput and ultrafast COVID-19 diagnosis. Such a device uses a p-n junction (PN junction) as the temperature controller to adjust the temperature in a single microdroplet independently and precisely, ensuring the amplification of reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP). Meanwhile, the platform incorporates an ultrasonic micro-stirring unit, greatly increasing the interaction between RT-LAMP molecules and accelerating the amplification. The results show good linearity over a wide linear range (1 to 105 copies/µL) and low LOD (0.48 copy/µL). Our method reports in only 6.1 min for high-viral load samples, and combines with sample preparation, the total detection process could be done within 30 min. Such a portable and fully integrated microdroplet molecular diagnostic platform is a promising tool for point-of-care diagnosis of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases in resource-limited settings.

Editorial: Integrated Point-of-Care Testing (POCT) Systems: Recent Progress and Applications

In this special topic issue, 14 papers have been included, with a mixture of 10 original research articles, 4 reviews. This research topic aims at discussing recent progress and applications of integrated POCT systems, including user-friendly, portable and simple monitoring platforms;immediate clinical assessment technology;flexible wearable sensors based on nanomaterials;and highly sensitive and specific biosensors. In addition, these integrated POCT systems are also widely applied in clinical diagnosis, disease control and other fields through the detection of various biomarkers. For example, large-scale rapid POCT systems for infectious diseases are urgently needed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Enhanced Isothermal Amplification for Ultrafast Sensing of SARS-CoV-2 in Microdroplets.

Rapid and high-throughput screening is critical to control the COVID-19 pandemic. Recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) with highly accessible and sensitive nucleic acid amplification has been widely used for point-of-care infection diagnosis. Here, we report an integrated microdroplet array platform composed of an ultrasonic unit and minipillar array to enhance the RPA for ultrafast, high-sensitivity, and high-throughput detection of SARS-CoV-2. On such a platform, the independent microvolume reactions on individual minipillars greatly decrease the consumption of reagents. The microstreaming driven by ultrasound creates on-demand contactless microagitation in the microdroplets and promotes the interaction between RPA components, thus greatly accelerating the amplification. In the presence of microstreaming, the detection time is 6-12 min, which is 38.8-59.3% shorter than that of controls without microstreaming, and the end-point fluorescence intensity also increased 1.3-1.7 times. Furthermore, the microagitation-enhanced RPA also exhibits a lower detection limit (0.42 copy/µL) for SARS-CoV-2 in comparison to the controls. This integrated microdroplet array detection platform is expected to meet the needs for high-throughput nucleic acid testing (NAT) to improve the containment of viral transmission during the epidemic, as well as provide a potential platform for the timely detection of other pathogens or viruses.

Psychometric Properties of the Primary Care PTSD Screen for DSM-5: Findings From Family Members of Chinese Healthcare Workers During the Outbreak of COVID-19.

Background: Minimal research has examined utility of PC-PTSD-5 in family members of frontline medical workers. The aims of our study were to develop and elucidate the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the PC-PTSD-5 and to determine its usefulness in screening for possible PTSD in relatives of Chinese healthcare workers during the COVID-19. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional research in the relatives of medical staffs working in a general hospital during the COVID-19. Descriptive analysis was used to characterize demographic information of family members to find factors associated with PTSD symptoms. For reliability test, the internal consistency of PC-PTSD-5 was accessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. A validity test was assessed by Pearson's correlation between scales. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the optimal cutoff score with the maximum Youden Index in this study. Results: The result of demographic information indicated that gender and the type of work undertaken by medical staff in the family have a potential impact on the PTSD symptoms of medical staff's family members. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of PC-PTSD-5 was 0.83, indicating the high reliability. Good validity was also demonstrated by Pearson coefficient. By calculating the Youden index, a cutoff score of 2 was found to be optimal in our study, with sensitivity of 80.74% and specificity of 88.43%. Conclusions: Our study has demonstrated the robust psychometric strengths of the PC-PTSD-5, introducing a reliable tool for screening PTSD among vulnerable and neglected families of these medical workers.