Articles: pandemics.
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Critical care medicine · Jul 2024
Measures and Impact of Caseload Surge During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review.
COVID-19 pandemic surges strained hospitals globally. We performed a systematic review to examine measures of pandemic caseload surge and its impact on mortality of hospitalized patients. ⋯ Pandemic caseload surge was associated with lower survival across most studies regardless of jurisdiction, timing, and population. Markedly variable surge strain measures precluded meta-analysis and findings have uncertain generalizability to lower-middle-income countries (LMICs). These findings underscore the need for establishing a consensus surge metric that is sensitive to capturing harms in everyday fluctuations and future pandemics and is scalable to LMICs.
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Evidence suggests reduced survival rates following Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in people with preexisting mental disorders, especially psychotic disorders, before the broad introduction of vaccines. It remains unknown whether this elevated mortality risk persisted at later phases of the pandemic and when accounting for the confounding effect of vaccination uptake and clinically recorded physical comorbidities. ⋯ People with preexisting psychotic, and, less robustly, substance use disorders demonstrated a persistently elevated risk of death following SARS-CoV-2 infection throughout the pandemic. While it cannot be ruled out that part of the detected associations is due to residual confounding, this excess mortality cannot be fully explained by lower vaccination uptake and more clinically recorded physical comorbidities in these patient groups.
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Parenteral nutrition represents a therapeutic option for patients with type 3 intestinal failure. If used exclusively, parenteral nutrition has to be complete to provide all essential nutrients. The aim was to assess the availability of parenteral nutrition in all parts of the world, to better comprehend the global situation, and to prepare an action plan to increase access to parenteral nutrition. ⋯ Despite the apparent high availability of parenteral nutrition worldwide, there are some factors that may have a substantial effect on the quality of parenteral nutrition admixtures. These shortages create an environment of inequality.