Conectar
by Masoumeh Sayahi, Maryam Nikbina, Azam Jahangirimehr, Barat Barati
Background and objectiveThe 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.
MethodsThis 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).
ResultsA 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.
ConclusionSocial 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.
by Yufeng Zhang, Keith D. Aaronson, Jonathan Gryak, Emily Wittrup, Cristian Minoccheri, Jessica R. Golbus, Kayvan Najarian
BackgroundTimely referral for advanced therapies (i.e., heart transplantation, left ventricular assist device) is critical for ensuring optimal outcomes for heart failure patients. Using electronic health records, our goal was to use data from a single hospitalization to develop an interpretable clinical decision-making system for predicting the need for advanced therapies at the subsequent hospitalization.
MethodsMichigan Medicine heart failure patients from 2013–2021 with a left ventricular ejection fraction ≤ 35% and at least two heart failure hospitalizations within one year were used to train an interpretable machine learning model constructed using fuzzy logic and tropical geometry. Clinical knowledge was used to initialize the model. The performance and robustness of the model were evaluated with the mean and standard deviation of the area under the receiver operating curve (AUC), the area under the precision-recall curve (AUPRC), and the F1 score of the ensemble. We inferred membership functions from the model for continuous clinical variables, extracted decision rules, and then evaluated their relative importance.
ResultsThe model was trained and validated using data from 557 heart failure hospitalizations from 300 patients, of whom 193 received advanced therapies. The mean (standard deviation) of AUC, AUPRC, and F1 scores of the proposed model initialized with clinical knowledge was 0.747 (0.080), 0.642 (0.080), and 0.569 (0.067), respectively, showing superior predictive performance or increased interpretability over other machine learning methods. The model learned critical risk factors predicting the need for advanced therapies in the subsequent hospitalization. Furthermore, our model displayed transparent rule sets composed of these critical concepts to justify the prediction.
ConclusionThese results demonstrate the ability to successfully predict the need for advanced heart failure therapies by generating transparent and accessible clinical rules although further research is needed to prospectively validate the risk factors identified by the model.
The goal of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to provide an overview of the prevalence of surgical wound infection and related factors in patients after long bone surgery. A comprehensive, systematic search was conducted in different international electronic databases, such as Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science and Persian electronic databases such as Iranmedex and Scientific Information Database using keywords extracted from Medical Subject Headings such as “Prevalence”, “Surgical wound infection”, “Surgical site infection” and “Orthopedics” from the earliest to the May 1, 2023. The appraisal tool for cross-sectional studies (AXIS tool) evaluates the quality of the included studies. A total of 71 854 patients undergoing long bone surgery participated in 12 studies. The pooled prevalence of surgical wound infection in patients who underwent long bone surgery reported in the 12 studies was 3.3% (95% CI: 1.5%–7.2%; I 2 = 99.39%; p < 0.001). The pooled prevalence of surgical wound infection in male and female patients who underwent long bone surgery was 4.6% (95% CI: 1.7%–11.7%; p < 0.001; I 2 = 99.34%) and 2.6% (95% CI: 1.0%–6.3%; I 2 = 98.84%; p < 0.001), respectively. The pooled prevalence of surgical wound infection in patients with femur surgery sites reported in nine studies was 3.7% (95% CI: 2.1–6.4%; I 2 = 93.43%; p < 0.001). The pooled prevalence of surgical wound infection in open and close fractures was 16.4% (95% CI: 8.2%–30.2%; I 2 = 95.83%; p < 0.001) and 2.9% (95% CI: 1.5%–5.5%; I 2 = 96.40%; p < 0.001), respectively. The pooled prevalence of surgical wound infection in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM), hypertension (HTN) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) was 4.6% (95% CI: 2.3%–8.9%; I 2 = 81.50%; p < 0.001), 2.7% (95% CI: 1.2%–6.0%; I 2 = 83.82%; p < 0.001) and 3.0% (95% CI: 1.4%–6.4%; I 2 = 69.12%; p = 0.006), respectively. In general, the different prevalence of surgical wound infection in patients undergoing surgical treatment after long bone fracture may be caused by underlying factors (gender and co-morbidity) and fracture-related factors (surgery site and type of fracture).
Current formulations of ready-to-use therapeutic foods (RUTFs) to treat severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in children focus on nutrient density and quantity. Less attention is given to foods targeting gut microbiota metabolism and mucosal barrier functions. Heat-stabilised rice bran contains essential nutrients, prebiotics, vitamins and unique phytochemicals that have demonstrated favourable bioactivity to modulate gut microbiota composition and mucosal immunity. This study seeks to examine the impact of RUTF with rice bran on the microbiota during SAM treatment, recovery and post-treatment growth outcomes in Jember, Indonesia. Findings are expected to provide insights into rice bran as a novel food ingredient to improve SAM treatment outcomes.
A total of 200 children aged 6–59 months with uncomplicated SAM (weight-for-height z-scores (WHZ)
The findings of this trial will be submitted to peer-reviewed journals and will be presented at relevant conferences. Ethics approval obtained from the Medical and Health Research Ethical Committee at the Faculty of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing, Universitas Gadjah Madain Yogyakarta Ref. No.: KE/FK/0546/EC/2022 and KE/FK/0703/EC/2023 and from Colorado State University IRB#1823, OHRP FWA00000647.
Women from social disadvantage are at greater risk of poor birth outcomes. The midwife-led continuity of care (MCC) model, which offers flexible and relational care from a small team of midwives, has demonstrated improved birth outcomes. In the general population, the impact of MCC on socially disadvantaged women and on birth outcomes is still unclear. This protocol describes a pragmatic evaluation of the MCC model in a socially disadvantaged population.
An open-labelled individual prospective randomised controlled trial with an internal pilot, process evaluation and economic analysis, from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2024.
Women will be randomly allocated to MCC or standard care as part of usual midwifery practice. Participants and midwives will not be blinded, but researchers will be. An internal pilot will test the feasibility of this process.
Participants are those randomised into MCC or standard care, who consent to participate in one of two Born in Bradford (BiB) birth cohort studies. Outcomes are taken from routinely linked health data, supplemented by additional data capture. The sample size is fixed by the capacity of MCC teams, commissioning duration and numbers recruited into the cohort. The estimated maximum fixed sample size is 1,410 pregnancies (minimum 734).
Intention to treat (ITT) analysis will be undertaken to assess the impact of MCC on two independent primary outcomes. An economic evaluation will explore the impact on health resource use and a process evaluation will explore fidelity to the MCC model, and barriers/facilitators to implementation from midwives’ and women’s perspectives.
Ethical approval has been obtained for the randomisation in midwifery practice, use of the cohort data for evaluation and for the process evaluation. Findings will be published in peer-reviewed journals, presented at conferences and translated into policy briefings.
The objective of this study was to explore the outcomes of research engagement (patient engagement, PE) in the context of qualitative research.
We observed engagement in two groups comprised of patients, clinicians and researchers tasked with conducting a qualitative preference exploration project in inflammatory bowel disease. One group was led by a patient research partner (PLG, partner led group) and the other by an academic researcher (RLG, researcher led group). A semistructured guide and a set of critical outcomes of research engagement were used as a framework to ground our analysis.
The study was conducted online.
Patient research partners (n=5), researchers (n=5) and clinicians (n=4) participated in this study.
Transcripts of meetings, descriptive and reflective observation data of engagement during meetings and email correspondence between group members were analysed to identify the outcomes of PE.
Both projects were patient-centred, collaborative, meaningful, rigorous, adaptable, ethical, legitimate, understandable, feasible, timely and sustainable. Patient research partners (PRPs) in both groups wore dual hats as patients and researchers and influenced project decisions wearing both hats. They took on advisory and operational roles. Collaboration seemed easier in the PLG than in the RLG. The RLG PRPs spent more time than their counterparts in the PLG sharing their experience with biologics and helping their group identify a meaningful project question. A formal literature review informed the design, project materials and analysis in the RLG, while the formal review informed the project materials and analysis in the PLG. A PRP in the RLG and the PLG lead leveraged personal connections to facilitate recruitment. The outcomes of both projects were meaningful to all members of the groups.
Our findings show that engagement of PRPs in research has a positive influence on the project design and delivery in the context of qualitative research in both the patient-led and researcher-led group.
by Shafaq Fatima, Ayesha Afzal, Hamna Rashid, Saba Iqbal, Rosheen Zafar, Komal Khalid, Ayman Rauf, Maryam Majeed, Aqsa Malik, Chris G. Carter
This experiment aimed to investigate the effects of partial substitution of crude protein from soybean meal (SBM) with black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) larvae meal (BSFLM) in juvenile rohu (Labeo rohita) and catla (Catla catla). Four isonitrogenous diets (23% crude protein) were formulated to replace 0% (T0), 40% (T40), 80% (T80) and 100% (T100) crude protein from SBM with BSFLM. Triplicate groups of each species (10 fish per replicate) were fed in an eight week growth experiment. After final sampling (n = 20 fish per dietary group), the remaining fish were exposed to bacterial (Staphylococcus aureus) challenge (0.80 CFU/ml) for 15 days. Rohu fed with BSFLM substituted diets showed significantly higher growth and feed conversion ratio as compared to those in T0. Catla fed with BSFLM substituted diets showed slightly higher growth indices. The growth response of rohu to BSFLM substitution was better than that noted in catla in all groups. The chemical composition, amino acids and fatty acids profile, haematological and biochemical parameters, levels of liver function enzymes measured in T0, T40, T80 and T100 were similar between four dietary groups in both species. However, the maximum value of cholesterol and triglycerides were noted in T100 both in catla and rohu. The values of lauric acid, α-linolenic acid, decosahexanoic acid, n3:n6 fatty acids ratio progressively increased with dietary increase of BSFLM in both species. At end of the growth experiment, the levels of catalase, superoxide dismutase and lysozyme increased linearly with the inclusion of BSFLM in both species while malondialdehyde showed similar values between different groups. However, catalase, and superoxide dismutase increased (T0To assess if the antecedent statin use was associated with all-cause death among COVID-19 patients enrolled in Medicaid.
Cohort study.
Mississippi Medicaid population.
This study included 10 792 Mississippi Medicaid-enrolled patients between 18 and 64 years of age with a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis from March 2020 to June 2021.
Antecedent statin use, which was determined by a record of statin prescription in the 90-day period prior to the COVID diagnosis.
The outcomes of interest included mortality from all cause within 30 days, 60 days and 90 days after index.
A total of 10 792 patients with COVID-19 met the inclusion and exclusion criteria, with 13.1% of them being antecedent statin users. Statin users were matched 1:1 with non-users based on age, sex, race, comorbidities and medication use by propensity score matching. In total, the matched cohort consisted of 1107 beneficiaries in each group. Multivariable logistic regression showed that statin users were less likely to die within 30 days (adjusted OR: 0.51, 95% CI: 0.32 to 0.83), 60 days (OR: 0.56, 95% CI: 0.37 to 0.85) and 90 days (OR: 0.55, 95% CI: 0.37 to 0.82) after diagnosis of COVID-19. Those with low-intensity/moderate-intensity statin use had significantly lower mortality risk in the 60-day and the 90-day follow-up period, while the high intensity of statin use was only found to be significantly associated with a lower odd of mortality within 30 days post index.
After COVID infection, Medicaid beneficiaries who had taken statins antecedently could be at lower risk for death. For patients with chronic conditions, continuity of care is crucial when interruptions occur in their medical care. Further research is required to further investigate the potential mechanisms and optimal use of statins in COVID-19 treatment.
by Win Lee Edwin Wong, Ryan Arathimos, Cathryn M. Lewis, Allan H. Young, Gavin S. Dawe
The relaxin-3/RXFP3 system has been implicated in the modulation of depressive- and anxiety-like behaviour in the animal literature; however, there is a lack of human studies investigating this signalling system. We seek to bridge this gap by leveraging the large UK Biobank study to retrospectively assess genetic risk variants linked with this neuropeptidergic system. Specifically, we conducted a candidate gene study in the UK Biobank to test for potential associations between a set of functional, candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) pertinent to relaxin-3 signalling, determined using in silico tools, and several outcomes, including depression, atypical depression, anxiety and metabolic syndrome. For each outcome, we used several rigorously defined phenotypes, culminating in subsample sizes ranging from 85,881 to 386,769 participants. Across all outcomes, there were no associations between any candidate SNP and any outcome phenotype, following corrections for multiple testing burden. Regression models comprising several SNPs per relevant candidate gene as exploratory variables further exhibited no prediction of outcome. Our findings corroborate conclusions from previous literature about the limitations of candidate gene approaches, even when based on firm biological hypotheses, in the domain of genetic research for neuropsychiatric disorders.by Bryan McCann, Simon C. Hunter, Kareena McAloney-Kocaman, Paul McCarthy, Jan Smith, Eileen Calveley
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic had wide-ranging negative impacts on mental health. The pandemic also placed extraordinary strain on frontline workers who were required to continue working and putting themselves at risk to provide essential services at a time when their normal support mechanisms may not have been available. This paper presents an evaluation of the Time for You service, a rapidly developed and implemented intervention aimed at providing frontline workers with quick access to flexible online mental health support. Time for You provided service users with three service options: self-guided online cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) resources; guided engagement with online CBT resources; 1–1 psychological therapy with trainee sport and exercise psychologists and trainee health psychologists. A process evaluation informed by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research considered service fidelity, adaptations, perceived impact, reach, barriers, and facilitators. Interviews with project managers (n = 5), delivery staff (n = 10), and service users (n = 14) explored perceptions of the service implementation and outcomes, supported by data regarding engagement with the online CBT platform (n = 217). Findings indicated that service users valued the flexibility of the service and the speed with which they were able to access support. The support offered by Trainee Psychologists was perceived to be of high quality, and the service was perceived by service users to have improved mental health and wellbeing. The rapid implementation contributed to issues regarding appropriate service user screening that led to trainee psychologists being unable to provide the service users with the support they needed as the presenting issues were outside of trainees’ competencies. Overall, the findings suggest that interventions offering flexible, online psychological support to frontline workers can be an effective model for future interventions. Trainee psychologists are also able to play an important role in delivering such services when clear screening processes are in place.Topical keloid therapy is performed with triamcinolone acetonide (TA) intralesional injection. However, the recurrence rate is high with various side effects. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have high proliferative abilities and reduce the activity and proliferation of fibroblast cells in keloids. To overcome the costs and limitations, conditioned medium (CM) is used. This study aims to evaluate feasibility of intralesional injection of umbilical cord MSC (UC-MSC) and conditioned medium (UC-CM) compared to TA for keloid therapy. Twenty-four patients with keloids who met the inclusion criteria were included, randomized into three treatment groups and then got assessed for the sociodemographic data, keloid volume, histopathology (type 1:3 collagen ratio), interleukin-10 (IL-10) levels and Patient and Observer Scar Assessment Scale (POSAS) score during visits. Largest volume regression occurred in the UC-MSC group, followed by UC-CM and then the TA group (UC-MSC: 45.32% ± 2.61%; UC-CM: 43.61% ± 3.67%; TA: 28.34% ± 3.81%; p = 0.003). Similar pattern was also observed in increase in IL-10 levels, the decrease in POSAS scores and the reduction of type 1:3 collagen ratio. Hence, UC-MSC and UC-CM are promisingly more effective than TA for keloid therapy, showcasing their superiority in reducing keloid volume, symptoms and type 1:3 collagen ratio, as well as increasing the levels of IL-10.
FreshRSS 