Articles: pandemics.
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Intensive care medicine · Nov 2024
The impact of the massive open online course C19_SPACE during the COVID-19 pandemic on clinical knowledge enhancement: a study among medical doctors and nurses.
During the initial phase of the pandemic, healthcare professionals faced difficulties due to the limited availability of comprehensive learning resources on managing patients affected with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The COVID-19 Skills Preparation Course (C19_SPACE) was tailored to meet the overwhelming demand for specialized training. The primary objective of this study was to assess the efficacy and impact of this program on enhancing clinical knowledge and to identify factors affecting this improvement. ⋯ C19_SPACE effectively increased the clinical knowledge of doctors and nurses. The effect was more pronounced in the program's target group of healthcare workers with less experience in the intensive care unit (ICU). Other factors associated with knowledge enhancement were sex and being a specialist in intensive care.
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Mayo Clinic proceedings · Nov 2024
Trends in California Cardiovascular Disease Mortality: Sex-Race/Ethnicity Disparity and Income Inequality.
To examine the cardiovascular disease (CVD)-related death trends and the relationship between CVD deaths and sex, race/ethnicity, and income in California from January 1, 1999, to December 31, 2021. ⋯ All the death rates that were decreasing, stagnant, or increasing prior to the COVID-19 pandemic increased after the pandemic. We found increasingly adverse outcomes among the poor and racial/ethnic minority populations.
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Pandemic-era social and political tensions may have accelerated pre-existing trends in gun owner diversification and shifts toward protection from people as a primary reason for gun ownership. Specific ownership motivations may shape storage behaviors, use patterns, policy support, and perceptions of safety. This study's objective was to assess the importance of specific reasons for owning guns, including protection from whom and in what circumstances, among demographic subgroups of new and prior gun owners. ⋯ Concurrent, strongly held motivations may produce ambivalence or resistance to public health messaging that narrowly focuses on preventing violent firearm-related injury. Permissive firearm policies may compound behavioral ambivalence, exacerbating conditions that threaten collective safety and civic expression. These conditions call for more nuanced, multidimensional, societal efforts to assure collective safety.
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J. Cardiothorac. Vasc. Anesth. · Nov 2024
Quo Vadis, ECMO? Multidisciplinary Hybrid Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation Rounds During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The complex care of patients on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) requires a high level of collaboration between multiple medical specialties and allied health professionals. Effective and timely communication between team members is imperative in ensuring patient safety. The COVID-19 pandemic posed unique challenges in the care of patients on ECMO. ⋯ After eight months of rounds, medical care team members were asked to provide feedback regarding the rounds format, strengths, and weaknesses. The most frequently identified strengths were improved multidisciplinary communication and continuity of care. This article demonstrates that hybrid virtual and in-person patient rounds are a feasible way for ECMO programs to improve team communication and overall patient care.
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Background: Loneliness and social isolation coexist, making it difficult to study each separately. The COVID-19 lockdown provided an unprecedented and ethically viable opportunity to study loneliness in seriously ill nursing home residents under uniformly imposed social isolation conditions. Objective: To understand the phenomenon of loneliness of the seriously ill nursing home patients under a uniform social isolation condition imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. ⋯ Participants in the last year of life also reported higher levels of loneliness. Conclusion: A study of loneliness under uniform social isolation conditions in seriously ill nursing home patients showed a high prevalence of loneliness and a strong correlation between self-reported loneliness and social isolation, especially in persons from minority communities and those in the last year of life. In-person support provided by nursing home staff and virtual support from family was helpful to patients.