Assessment of the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on pregnant women.

Purpose: This is a cross-sectional observational study that aims to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in pregnant women.Method: A form containing the validated Impact of Event Scale - Revised questionnaire was sent to the participants.Results: From the 106 participants, 13 had been contaminated by the Sars-Cov2 virus during the pregnancy. More than half of the women (51.89%) presented some degree of psychological impact, 20 participants were classified as having a mild impact, 6 with moderated impact and 29 with severe impact. The psychological impact was more prominent in women in their third gestational trimester, 36.07% of these women presented a severe impact, 4.92% a moderated impact and 14.75% a mild impact. The IES-R questionnaire had a mean score of 35.62 in the group of contaminated patients, indicating a higher psychological impact in comparison with the mean score of 26.76 in the group of patients who were not contaminated by the vírus.Conclusion: It can be inferred that the pregnant women who were not contaminated by the Sars-Cov2 presented a lower psychological impact than those who were contaminated. In addition, patients with lower psychological impact did not miss their ultrasound exams. Furthermore, more than half of the women who participated in the study, whether they were contaminated or not, presented some degree of psychological impact.

Gram-stain plus MALDI-TOF MS (Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization-Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry) for a rapid diagnosis of urinary tract infection.

Microbiological confirmation of a urinary tract infection (UTI) takes 24-48 h. In the meantime, patients are usually given empirical antibiotics, sometimes inappropriately. We assessed the feasibility of sequentially performing a Gram stain and MALDI-TOF MS mass spectrometry (MS) on urine samples to anticipate clinically useful information. In May-June 2012, we randomly selected 1000 urine samples from patients with suspected UTI. All were Gram stained and those yielding bacteria of a single morphotype were processed for MALDI-TOF MS. Our sequential algorithm was correlated with the standard semiquantitative urine culture result as follows: Match, the information provided was anticipative of culture result; Minor error, the information provided was partially anticipative of culture result; Major error, the information provided was incorrect, potentially leading to inappropriate changes in antimicrobial therapy. A positive culture was obtained in 242/1000 samples. The Gram stain revealed a single morphotype in 207 samples, which were subjected to MALDI-TOF MS. The diagnostic performance of the Gram stain was: sensitivity (Se) 81.3%, specificity (Sp) 93.2%, positive predictive value (PPV) 81.3%, negative predictive value (NPV) 93.2%, positive likelihood ratio (+LR) 11.91, negative likelihood ratio (-LR) 0.20 and accuracy 90.0% while that of MALDI-TOF MS was: Se 79.2%, Sp 73.5, +LR 2.99, -LR 0.28 and accuracy 78.3%. The use of both techniques provided information anticipative of the culture result in 82.7% of cases, information with minor errors in 13.4% and information with major errors in 3.9%. Results were available within 1 h. Our serial algorithm provided information that was consistent or showed minor errors for 96.1% of urine samples from patients with suspected UTI. The clinical impacts of this rapid UTI diagnosis strategy need to be assessed through indicators of adequacy of treatment such as a reduced time to appropriate empirical treatment or earlier withdrawal of unnecessary antibiotics.