Caregiving stress and maternal mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It has now been extensively documented that parental mental health has deteriorated since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although pandemic-related stress has been widespread, parents faced the unique challenge of navigating remote schooling. Parental oversight of children's education, loss of access to school supportive resources, and the challenges of remote learning may have been most problematic for parents of children with or at elevated risk for mental health difficulties. In the current study, we examined interactive effects of parent-reported pandemic-related caregiving stress and child internalizing and externalizing problems on parental depressive symptoms in a community-based cohort (N = 115) in the Northeast of the United States. Results indicated that parents experiencing higher levels of pandemic-related caregiving stress whose children exhibited elevated externalizing behaviors reported heightened levels of depressive symptoms. Greater child internalizing problems were associated with higher parental depressive symptoms independent of caregiving stress. These findings point to conditions that might heighten risk for parent mental health challenges in the context of ongoing remote or hybrid learning and pandemic-associated restrictions. Further, the findings point to conditions and characteristics that may be screened to identify and intervene with vulnerable families to mitigate mental health problems.

Usage Patterns of Web-Based Stroke Calculators in Clinical Decision Support: Retrospective Analysis.

BACKGROUND: Clinical scores are frequently used in the diagnosis and management of stroke. While medical calculators are increasingly important support tools for clinical decisions, the uptake and use of common medical calculators for stroke remain poorly characterized. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to describe use patterns in frequently used stroke-related medical calculators for clinical decisions from a web-based support system. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study of calculators from MDCalc, a web-based and mobile app-based medical calculator platform based in the United States. We analyzed metadata tags from MDCalc's calculator use data to identify all calculators related to stroke. Using relative page views as a measure of calculator use, we determined the 5 most frequently used stroke-related calculators between January 2016 and December 2018. For all 5 calculators, we determined cumulative and quarterly use, mode of access (eg, app or web browser), and both US and international distributions of use. We compared cumulative use in the 2016-2018 period with use from January 2011 to December 2015. RESULTS: Over the study period, we identified 454 MDCalc calculators, of which 48 (10.6%) were related to stroke. Of these, the 5 most frequently used calculators were the CHA2DS2-VASc score for atrial fibrillation stroke risk calculator (5.5% of total and 32% of stroke-related page views), the Mean Arterial Pressure calculator (2.4% of total and 14.0% of stroke-related page views), the HAS-BLED score for major bleeding risk (1.9% of total and 11.4% of stroke-related page views), the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score calculator (1.7% of total and 10.1% of stroke-related page views), and the CHADS2 score for atrial fibrillation stroke risk calculator (1.4% of total and 8.1% of stroke-related page views). Web browser was the most common mode of access, accounting for 82.7%-91.2% of individual stroke calculator page views. Access originated most frequently from the most populated regions within the United States. Internationally, use originated mostly from English-language countries. The NIHSS score calculator demonstrated the greatest increase in page views (238.1% increase) between the first and last quarters of the study period. CONCLUSIONS: The most frequently used stroke calculators were the CHA2DS2-VASc, Mean Arterial Pressure, HAS-BLED, NIHSS, and CHADS2. These were mainly accessed by web browser, from English-speaking countries, and from highly populated areas. Further studies should investigate barriers to stroke calculator adoption and the effect of calculator use on the application of best practices in cerebrovascular disease.

A systematic review: The effects of yoga on pregnancy.

OBJECTIVE: A systematic review was conducted to update and provide a comprehensive overview on the psychological effects of antenatal yoga on pregnancy compared to standard prenatal care. STUDY DESIGN: Four databases were searched using keywords "yoga", "pregnancy", "perinatal care", "prenatal care", "postnatal care", "postpartum period", "peripartum period", "patient outcome assessment", "outcome assessment", "pregnancy outcome", "treatment outcome". Trials were considered if they were randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published from 2011 to 2018 and evaluated an antenatal yoga intervention. All studies were assessed for risk of bias using the Cochrane criteria. Trial characteristics and outcomes were extracted and synthesized descriptively where possible. Due to heterogeneity, meta-analysis was not possible. RESULTS: Of the 175 non-duplicated studies, 16 met criteria for full-text review. Five RCTs met the inclusion criteria and were included in the systematic review. The findings of the RCTs suggest antenatal yoga may be safe and may effectively decrease stress levels, anxiety scores, depression scores, and pain response as well as increasing maternal immunity and emotional-wellbeing. CONCLUSION: Yoga appears to be safe and may improve psychological and pregnancy outcomes. However, due to the limited number of studies, more high-quality, large RCTs are needed to draw conclusions about improvement in other pregnancy outcomes.

Transfusion Medicine Equations Made Internet Accessible.

Multiple mathematical equations inform the practice of transfusion medicine. These equations apply to a wide range of topics: dosage of blood products, calculation of fluid volumes, and even specific treatment decisions (e.g. corrected count increment for determination of platelet refractoriness). The calculation of these equations can be complicated, prone to error, and time-consuming. A trusted source is needed to accurately perform these calculations 24 hours a day without error and without monetary cost. We sought to build internet-enabled calculators relevant to the practice of transfusion medicine. We partnered with MDCalc, an online host of medical calculators with 1 million monthly users in 196 countries, to design and host the calculators. The calculators guide users in the application of transfusion medicine equations by providing indications for use, inputs for the equations variables, error-checking, warnings for bad inputs, and interpretive guidance of the result. The following calculators were built: blood volume, corrected count increment (CCI), plasma dosage, cryoprecipitated antihemophilic factor dosage, approximate number of units for compatibility testing, maternal-fetal hemorrhage Rh(D) immune globulin dosage, intrauterine RBC transfusion dosage, neonatal polycythemia partial exchange, theoretical removal of a substance by plasmapheresis, sickle cell RBC exchange volume, peripheral blood stem cell collection, and a calculator relevant to donor lymphocyte infusion. Clinicians can now utilize this reputable and highly visible online source to access these common transfusion medicine equations at any time with an internet-enabled device (https://www.mdcalc.com/search?filter=transfusion+medicine).

Calculated Decisions: Ottawa Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Rule

The Ottawa subarachnoid hemorrhage rule is used to rule out subarachnoid hemorrhage in patients with headache.

Cacluated Decisions: TASH (Trauma Associated Severe Hemorrhage) Score

The TASH Score predicts the need for massive transfusion based on clinical and laboratory data.