Psychological Impact of COVID-19 Cases on Medical Staff of Beijing Xiaotangshan Hospital

Prevalence of and factors associated with symptoms consistent with a diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome among resident physicians in standardised training in China: a cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVES

This study aims to investigate the incidence of and factors associated with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) among resident physicians in standardised training at eight traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) hospitals in China.

DESIGN

A cross-sectional survey was administered to resident physicians in their first to third years of standardised training at eight TCM hospitals.

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING

A total of 514 resident physicians in standardised training were included.

MEASURES

The questionnaire consisted of two sections, namely: section A collected basic information, and section B included the four-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-4), the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the Rome IV criteria for IBS. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression models were constructed to assess the associations of age, sex, body mass index, stress, depression, anxiety, sleep quality and IBS.

RESULTS

Of the included resident doctors, 77.2% were female, 20.4% were obese or underweight and 8.6% had symptoms consistent with a diagnosis of IBS. There were no statistically significant differences in lifestyle factors (night shift work, overtime work or working efficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic) between patients with IBS and participants without IBS (hereafter, non-IBS participants) (p=0.429, p=0.572 or p=0.464, respectively). Notably, compared with non-IBS participants, patients with IBS had significantly higher mean scores on the PSS-4 and PHQ-4 (p=0.028 and p=0.012, respectively); however, there was not a significant difference in PSQI scores between these two groups (p=0.079). Depression symptoms were significantly associated with IBS (unadjusted OR 0.498, 95% CI 0.265 to 0.935, p=0.030).

CONCLUSION

These findings suggest that IBS is common among resident physicians in standardised training. Future studies should investigate emotional distress, especially stress and depression, in the development of prevention or treatment of IBS.

Risk factors for healthcare professionals' mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review

The aim of the present study was to map the available evidence on the mental health risk factors of frontline health professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a systematic review that followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) criteria. The search was independently carried out by four researchers, following the selection criteria in the electronic databases: PubMed Central, Ovid Technologies, GALE Academic Onefile, Science Citation Index Expanded. The data processing used Zotero software, responsible for creating and importing items according to the criteria established by the research. A total of 18,733 articles were found, of which 2,722 were excluded by the Zotero software because they were in duplicate, and another 366 were manually excluded. After applying the selection criteria, 43 articles entered the final analysis of this review. It is recommended that new scientific research be carried out, especially focusing on the analysis of health workers' mental health, aiming at providing the basis to create and implement public mental health programs and policies for workers.

mRNA vaccine in cancer therapy: Current advance and future outlook

Messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccines are a relatively new class of vaccines that have shown great promise in the immunotherapy of a wide variety of infectious diseases and cancer. In the past 2 years, SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines have contributed tremendously against SARS-CoV2, which has prompted the arrival of the mRNA vaccine research boom, especially in the research of cancer vaccines. Compared with conventional cancer vaccines, mRNA vaccines have significant advantages, including efficient production of protective immune responses, relatively low side effects and lower cost of acquisition. In this review, we elaborated on the development of cancer vaccines and mRNA cancer vaccines, as well as the potential biological mechanisms of mRNA cancer vaccines and the latest progress in various tumour treatments, and discussed the challenges and future directions for the field.

Research on the influence of indoor thermal environment and activity levels on thermal comfort in protective clothing

With the outbreak of infectious diseases such as Corona Virus Disease 2019, medical staff work intensively in isolated plots, medical disposable protective clothing (MDPC) has poor air condition and humidity permeability, which seriously reduces the thermal comfort of medical staff. In this paper, the effect of indoor thermal environment and activity levels on thermal comfort inside MDPC was studied by experiment. Five parts of the body were measured inside MDPC and the appropriate movements were chosen to simulate different levels of labor intensity. Meanwhile, physiological parameters and subjective thermal sensation were statistically analyzed. The results showed the influence range of different indoor temperatures on the temperature and humidity inside MDPC was about 1 °C and 10 %, respectively; it indicated that the environment inside MDPC could be improved by reducing indoor temperature, that is, a cross intelligent adjustment mode was proposed. The effect of labor intensity on the temperature inside MDPC was significantly less than that of humidity. Within 20 min, the humidity changes under moderate and heavy labor intensity were even more than 10 %, and the subjective discomfort threshold of the subjects increased by nearly 50 %. Furthermore, the maximum benefit could be obtained by concentrating cooling on back, forehead, chest and upper arm. Theoretical models of working time, labor intensity, and temperature and humidity inside MDPC under different indoor temperatures and different parts were given. In addition, acceptable regions inside MDPC which were approximately parallelogram in the enthalpy-humidity chart. These conclusions could be a reference for future thermal comfort inside MDPC research.

Psychological Impact During the First Outbreak of COVID-19 on Frontline Health Care Workers in Shanghai

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is a significant health threat. Health care worker (HCWs) are at a significant risk of infection which may cause high levels of psychological distress. The aim of this study was to investigate the psychological impact of the COVID-19 on HCWs and factors which were associated with these stresses during the first outbreak in Shanghai. Methods: Between February 9 and 21, 2020, a total of 3,114 frontline HCWs from 26 hospitals in Shanghai completed an online survey. The questionnaire included questions on their sociodemographic characteristics, 15 stress-related questions, and General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12). Exploratory factor analysis was applied to the 15 stress-related questions which produced four distinct factors for evaluation. Multiple linear regression models were performed to explore the association of personal characteristics with each score of the four factors. Binary logistic analysis was used to explain the association of personal characteristics and these four factors with the GHQ-12. Results: There were 2,691 valid surveys received. The prevalence of emotional distress (defined as GHQ-12 ≥ 12) was noted in 47.7% (95%CI:45.7-49.6%) HCWs. Females (OR = 1.43, 95%CI:1.09-1.86) were more likely to have a psychological distress than males. However, HCWs who work in secondary hospitals (OR = 0.71, 95% CI:0.58-0.87) or had a no contact history (OR = 0.45, 95%CI: 0.35-0.58) were less likely to suffer psychological distress. HCWs who were nurses, married, and had a known contact history were highly likely to have anxiety. HCWs working at tertiary hospitals felt an elevated anxiety regarding the infection, a lack of knowledge, and less protected compared to those who worked at secondary hospitals. Conclusions: Our study shows that the frontline HCWs had a significant psychosocial distress during the COVID-19 outbreak in Shanghai. HCWs felt a lack of knowledge and had feelings of being not protected. It is necessary for hospitals and governments to provide additional trainings and psychological counseling to support the first-line HCWs.

Protective and Risk Factors for Medical and Nursing Staff Suffering From Psychological Symptoms During COVID-19

Background: With the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic in China, the general public but also medical staff were confronted with psychological challenges, suffering from the highly infectious and unknown characteristics of COVID-19. In this study, we surveyed psychological symptoms including anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders in medical staff.

Method: A questionnaire star/WeChat link-based survey assessing the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item scale, Patient Health Questionnaire-9 depression, the Insomnia Severity Index, Social Support scales in addition to lifestyle, and income level was conducted and included 8,288 medical staff from 24 provinces in China. Pearson Chi-square and Mann-Whitney U-tests were used to evaluate single risk factors and significant differences in psychological symptoms before and during the outbreak of COVID-19. Binary logistic regression analyses were conducted for the risk factors of anxiety, depression, and sleep disorder symptoms.

Results: Medical staff had a high incidence of psychological symptoms, which was more prominent during the COVID-19 epidemic. Comparatively, females, nurses, first-line department, never exercised, and low income were risk factors for psychological symptoms. Social support including objective support, subjective support, support utility, and regular sports over 3 times per week were protective and manageable elements that could protect from and manage the psychological symptoms of medical staff.

Conclusion: The susceptibility of psychological symptoms among medical staff should be of concern to policymakers and the public in the long-term, and the aggravation of mental health problems of medical staff could be eased by providing adequate social support during and after the COVID-19 outbreak.