Mental health status of pregnant women during COVID-19 in healthcare centers of Iran: A cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The COVID-19 pandemic impacted every single aspect of life. In addition to being a public health emergency, the COVID-19 outbreak impacted the mental health of individuals, especially pregnant women. This study aimed to examine the mental health status of pregnant women and also the effect of sociodemographic factors on their mental health status during COVID-19 in healthcare centers of Iran. METHODS: This cross-sectional, analytical-descriptive study was conducted among pregnant women referring to healthcare centers in Shoushtar, Iran, in 2021. Multistage cluster sampling was used to select participants. Data were collected using the General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28). Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 22. The Pearson correlation coefficient was used to examine the association between quantitative variables. A generalized linear model (GLM) was applied to estimate the effect of independent variables on the dependent variable (mental health). RESULTS: A total of 197 participants with a mean ± SD age of 27.85 ± 6.37 years took part in this study. The total mean score of mental health was estimated at 17.47±8.20. The highest mean ± SD score was, respectively, related to social dysfunction (6.63 ± 2.86), anxiety and insomnia (5.28 ± 3.53), and somatic symptoms (4.17 ± 3.27). Mental health disorder was significantly correlated with participants' age (R = .223, P = .00), number of pregnancy (gravida) (R = .272, P = .00), number of births (para) (R = 0.272, P = .00), and number of abortions (R = .172, P = .015). About 80% of pregnant women did not reveal impaired mental health conditions or psychological distress, while 19.3% showed scores that indicate probable mental health conditions. CONCLUSION: Social dysfunction was the most common mental health problem among pregnant women. It is necessary to pay more attention to the mental health status of pregnant women during a pandemic. Interventions such as practical strategies to promote social support and improve pregnant women's mental health during pregnancy are highly important.

Role of bio-electrochemical technology for enzyme activity stimulation in high-consumption pharmaceuticals biodegradation.

Active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and their intermediate residues have recently been considered a serious concern. Among technologies, bio-electrochemical technologies (BETs) have stimulated the production of bio-electrical energy. This review aims to examine the benefit and mechanism of BETs on the degradation of high-consumption pharmaceutical compounds, including antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic drugs, and the stimulation of enzymes induced in a bioreactor. Moreover, intermediates and the proposed pathways of pharmaceutical compound biodegradation in BETs are to be explained in this review. According to studies performed exclusively, the benefit of BETs is using bio-electroactive microbes to mineralize recalcitrant pharmaceutical contaminants by promoting enzyme activity and energy. Since BETs use the electron transfer chain between bio-anode/-cathode and pharmaceuticals, the enzyme activity is essential in the oxidation and reduction of phenolic rings of drugs and the ineffective detoxification of effluent from the treatment plant. This study is suggested a vital and influential role of BETs in mineralizing and enzyme induction in bioreactors. Eventually, a content of future developments or outlooks of BETs are propounded to improve the pharmaceutical industries' wastewater problems.

Characterization of diet based nonalcoholic fatty liver disease/nonalcoholic steatohepatitis in rodent models: Histological and biochemical outcomes.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), as the most common chronic liver disease, is rapidly increasing worldwide. This complex disorder can include simple liver steatosis to more serious stages of nonalcoholic fibrosis and steatohepatitis (NASH). One of the critical concerns in NASH research is selecting and confiding in relying on preclinical animal models and experimental methods that can accurately reflect the situation in human NASH. Recently, creating nutritional models of NASH with a closer dietary pattern in human has been providing reliable, simple, and reproducible tools that hope to create a better landscape for showing the recapitulation of disease pathophysiology. This review focuses on recent research on rodent models (mice, rats, and hamsters) in the induction of the dietary model of NAFLD /NASH. This research tries to compile the different dietary compositions of NASH, time frames required for disease development, and their impact on liver histological features as well as metabolic parameters.

The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic in hospital: An insight into environmental surfaces contamination, disinfectants' efficiency, and estimation of plastic waste production.

The current COVID-19 pandemic that is caused by SARS-CoV-2 has led all the people around the globe to implement preventive measures such as environmental cleaning using alcohol-based materials, and social distancing in order to prevent and minimize viral transmission via fomites. The role of environmental surface contamination in viral transmission in within hospital wards is still debatable, especially considering the spread of new variants of the virus in the world. The present comprehensive study aims to investigate environmental surface contamination in different wards of a hospital as well as the efficacy of two common disinfectants for virus inactivation, and tries to produce an estimate of plastic residue pollution as an environmental side effect of the pandemic. With regard to environmental surface contamination, 76 samples were taken from different wards of the hospital, from which 40 were positive. These samples were taken from contaminated environmental surfaces such as patient bed handles, the nursing station, toilet door handles, cell phones, patient toilet sinks, toilet bowls, and patient's pillows, which are regularly-touched surfaces and can pose a high risk for transmission of the virus. The number of positive samples also reveals that SARS-CoV-2 can survive on inanimate surfaces after disinfection by ethanol 70 % and sodium hypochlorite (0.001 %). The results correspond to the time that the VOC 202012/01 (lineage B.1.1.7) had emerged in the hospital and this should be considered that this variant could possibly have different traits, characteristics, and level of persistence in the environment. The plastic waste as an environmental side effect of the pandemic was also investigated and it was confirmed that the amount of plastic residue for a single (RT) PCR confirmatory test for COVID-19 diagnosis is 821.778 g of plastic residue/test. As a result, it is recommended that for improving plastic waste management programs, considering challenges such as minimizing plastic waste pollution, optimization of gas control technologies in incinerators, process redesign, reduction of single-use plastics and PPE, etc. Is of utmost importance.

Are history of dietary intake and food habits of patients with clinical symptoms of COVID 19 different from healthy controls? A case-control study.

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease that put unprecedented significant strain on clinical services and healthcare systems. The aim of the present research was to assess dietary food groups and also food habits of patients with clinical symptoms of COVID 19 and healthy controls. METHODS: This case-control research was carried out on 505 participants (279 subjects with clinical symptoms of COVID-19 and 226 controls), in age 18-65 years. Dietary food group's intake last year was investigated by a food frequency questionnaire. Food habits were asked by a general information questionnaire. The strength of the association between food group's intakes with the odds ratios (ORs) of COVID-19 was assessed using Logistic regression models. RESULTS: After adjusting for physical activity in the logistic regression models, intake of dough and yogurt had a significantly protective role on occurrence of COVID19 (OR = 0.62; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.44-0.87; P = 0.006) (OR = 0.74; 95% CI = 0.56-0.98; P = 0.044), respectively. No significant differences were seen in food habits between the two groups in the last year ago. CONCLUSIONS: High risk population for COVID19, advised to consume enough amount of yogurt and dough at the time of this pandemic.

Assessment of two hemispherical and hemispherical-conical miniature sources used in electronic brachytherapy using Monte Carlo Simulation.

INTRODUCTION: Since the heart of the electronic brachytherapy system is a tube of a miniature x-ray and due to the increasing use of electronic brachytherapy, there is an urgent need for acquiring knowledge about the X-ray spectrum produced, and distribution of x-ray dose. This study aimed to assess the optimal target thickness (TT), the X-ray source spectrum, and the absorbed dose of two miniature sources of hemispherical and hemispherical-conical used in electronic brachytherapy systems, through a Monte Carlo simulation. METHODS: Considering the advantages of MCNPX Code (2.6.0), two input files corresponding to the characteristics of the investigated miniature sources were prepared for this code and then were used for simulation. The optimal thickness (OT) of gold and tungsten targets was determined for the energy levels of 40, 45, and 50 kilo-electron-volts. RESULTS: In this study, the values of the size of the optimal thickness of 0.92, 1.01 and 1.06 µ for gold target and values of 0.99, 1.08 and 1.34 µ for tungsten target were obtained for energies 40, 45 and 50 keV that using these values, the optimum thickness of 0.92, X-ray spectrum within and outside targets, axial and radial doses for the used energy were calculated for two miniature sources. CONCLUSION: It was found that the energy of incident electron, target shape, cross-sectional area of the produced bremsstrahlung, atomic number of materials constituting of the target and output window are the factors with the greatest impacts on the produced X-ray spectrum and the absorbed dose.