As the COVID-19 pandemic has taken hold of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the world, it has highlighted many challenges healthcare workers face. Those nurses working in the emergency room (ER), settings that are under normal circumstances unpredictable and acute, have been particularly affected. This research aimed to explore the stories ER nurses tell to describe their experiences of working during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto, Canada. Narrative methodology was used to understand the thoughts, feelings, and problems facing ER nurses. The research study includes the stories of three Toronto-based ER nurses who share their experiences of working during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were interviewed twice, and data was analysed using the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space of time, sociality, and place. Plotlines of 'before they were heroes', 'hero', 'fall from grace', 'villain' and 'to be continued', organized each story. Resounding narrative threads emerged across the three narrative accounts and are presented as understandings. Threads that resonated across the stories include mistrust in leadership, fear and isolation, expectations and duty to care, nursing shortages, personal safety and PPE, workload and stress, moral and psychological distress, and lost voice. The findings of this inquiry offer a new context for understanding the thoughts, feelings, and problems facing ER nurses working in Toronto during the COVID-19 pandemic in a way that preserves, values, and respects the voices and stories of the nurses themselves, thus allowing for emotional healing while offering insight for nursing education, practice, and research.

Introducción: La pandemia COVID-19 ha tenido un gran impacto en todo el mundo y al ser la obesidad es un factor de riesgo importante para la forma grave de la enfermedad por SARS-CoV-2 la cirugía bariátrica tendría gran impacto clínico. La realización de esta cirugía en personas con obesidad, implica una pérdida de peso, la cual tiene múltiples efectos beneficiosos como reducir la respuesta inflamatoria, incrementar la inmunidad y mejorar la función cardiopulmonar y renal. Esta revisión tiene el propósito de proveer información actualizada sobre la cirugía bariátrica en la morbimortalidad de la infección por SARS-CoV-2. Se espera que brinde apoyo al lector a fin de entender los mecanismos fisiopatológicos implicados en el mejor pronóstico y menor probabilidad de hospitalización y mortalidad por COVID-19, en comparación de los pacientes obesos que no han sido sometidos a cirugía bariátrica.

Objetivo: Evaluar la asociación entre la ansiedad generada por la pandemia COVID-19 y las elecciones alimentarias en jóvenes universitarios de 18 a 25 años de Lima Metropolitana - Perú, 2020. Diseño: Estudio cuantitativo, transversal, con análisis de datos primarios, que pretende evaluar la prevalencia de la ansiedad por COVID-19 y su asociación con las elecciones alimentarias en jóvenes universitarios entre las edades de 18 a 25 años de Lima Metropolitana, Perú. Asimismo, al ser un estudio transversal, se realizará en un momento específico de tiempo; en el mes de noviembre de 2020, durante la pandemia por COVID-19.

Jornadas Académicas de Salud 2021. Ponente: Dra. Herrera, Rosemary / Las Jornadas Académicas en Salud 2021 tienen como propósito promover la actualización de los profesionales de la salud de diversas especialidades, enfatizando la atención interprofesional centrada en el paciente.

Jornadas Académicas de Salud 2021. Ponente: Psi. Llerena, Carlos / Las Jornadas Académicas en Salud 2021 tienen como propósito promover la actualización de los profesionales de la salud de diversas especialidades, enfatizando la atención interprofesional centrada en el paciente.

Wastewater surveillance (WWS), included in the field of study of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), is the analysis of wastewaters to quantify community disease or use of chemicals by the community, such as pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs. WWS has historically been applied within the context of community public health through monitoring of pathogenic viral outbreaks such as polio and hepatitis A, as well as monitoring of illicit drug consumption. While WWS has been used for several decades, many of its contributions were largely unpopular within the public mainstream prior to the coronavirus disease in 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Since the onset of the pandemic, public health resources around the world were significantly afflicted by COVID-19. This elicited a prompt response by researchers to rapidly develop WWS for the application of severe acute respiratory syndrome-2 virus (SARS-CoV-2) WWS as a complementary epidemiological tool for population-wide monitoring of COVID-19 outbreaks. With the novelty of this technology, there are several challenges and gaps of knowledge that remain to be addressed in order to improve the reliability of WWS for SARS-CoV-2. Particularly, the effects of various constituents, endogenous and added, that commonly occur and are applied to wastewaters may result in the significant variability observed in WWS data sets, which in turn results in the uncertainty of the interpretation of WWS data sets of SARS-CoV-2 by various public health agencies throughout the pandemic. This study is aimed to address the critical issue of data variability by investigating the effect of enhanced primary clarification with ferric-based chemical coagulants on the measurements of SARS-CoV-2 and the pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV) WWS normalizing biomarker. It is believed that the addition of ferric ions via common coagulation treatment of primary sludge would interfere with the quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) amplification of viral RNA and could cause false-negative results. With 18.1% of the total population in Canada receiving wastewater that undergoes primary treatment including chemical precipitation/flocculation, and with proof of enrichment of SARS-CoV-2 and PMMoV RNA in untreated wastewater and settled primary sludge, it is important to elucidate whether ferric sulfate chemical coagulant is a potential source of data variability for population-wide WWS. With ferric sulfate concentrations ranging from 0 - 60 mg/L as Fe³⁺, the PMMoV-normalized SARS-CoV-2 viral signal measurements were significantly reduced as a result of a significant elevation in the PMMoV viral signal measurements. This is possibly due to the partitioning of PMMoV viral particles from the liquid phase to the solids phase of wastewater samples influenced by ferric sulfate at 60 mg/L as Fe³⁺ compared to the samples that were not treated with ferric sulfate. This thesis also examined the evolving relation of WWS measurements to measurements of public health metrics to improve our current interpretation of SARS-CoV-2 WWS. The statistical correlations between wastewater PMMoV-normalized SARS-CoV-2 viral signal and clinical metrics indicative of disease incidence (laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 positive cases), and metrics indicative of disease burden (hospitalization, intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, and deaths) are investigated from the onset of the wildtype and the Alpha variant of concern (VOC) during limited vaccination immunization, through the onset of the Omicron BA.2 VOC in two strongly characterized sewersheds (Ottawa and Hamilton). WWS demonstrates to be a strong indicator of both disease incidence and disease burden during the period of limited vaccination immunization, and a moderate indicator of disease incidence, while remains a strong indicator of disease burden during the period of peak vaccination immunization (2-4 weeks after reception of 2 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine). Hospitalization-to-wastewater ratio is further shown to be a good indicator of VOC virulence when widespread clinical testing is limited.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was difficult for mothers in Ontario to obtain the breastfeeding support they required due to pressure on the healthcare system, social restrictions, and redeployment of healthcare professionals from perinatal services to the pandemic response (Canadian Institute for Health Information [CIHI], 2022; Jack et al., 2021; Rudrum, 2021). The purpose of this interpretive description study was to better understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic upon first-time mothers' experiences and perceptions of breastfeeding support in Ontario, Canada. Eligible participants were recruited using purposeful and snowball sampling. Thirteen one-on-one, semi-structured interviews were conducted using a video-conferencing software. One over-arching theme, on their own, and three major themes were identified by the researchers. The first theme, lack of support, is broken down into subthemes lack of practical support, lack of informational support, lack of social support and lack of emotional and esteem-building support. The second theme, figuring it out, is further categorized into the subthemes understanding, taking risks, and motivation and resourcefulness. The third theme, emotional hardships, is broken down into two sub-themes, isolation and it was difficult. The findings from this study have implications for nursing practice, policy, and research, that support the need for more effective pandemic preparedness from the province, including, consistent access to formal and informal breastfeeding support services.

Background COVID-19 brought about unprecedented changes to health care systems, putting a strain on nurses, including those in rural hospitals. The accounts of nurses who worked during COVID-19 can help to increase understanding of this strain and how nurses can be supported during such crises. The aim of this study was to increase the understanding of rural acute care nurses’ experiences during COVID-19 and identify what challenged and supported them. Methods This study was completed using a qualitative description design, supported by the Society-to-Cells Resilience Theory. Convenience sampling was used to recruit participants with a target sample size of 10-30 nurses. Semi-structured interviews were conducted between March and May of 2023 via Zoom software; lasting from 60 to 90 minutes each. Content analysis was conducted by the primary researcher, with checks by a secondary researcher on two interviews for coding accuracy. Results Six Ontario rural acute care nurses participated in the study. Three related categories of factors emerged from the analysis; individual, workplace, and community factors. At the individual level, nurses faced social isolation, but were supported by their family and their own optimism. A key workplace factor that contributed to their distress was poor working conditions, including ineffectual management. However, they were supported emotionally by their coworkers. Lastly, the community could have a positive or negative effect depending on how supportive they were of nurses during COVID-19. Conclusion Strong support systems, resource availability in the workplace, and active and supportive management increased nurses’ well-being and resilience in the rural workplace. These findings can be used to inform future policy and management decisions in rural workplaces, especially during times of crisis, to prevent turnover and worsened mental health in rural nurses. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / COVID-19 brought about unexpected changes to healthcare systems, putting a strain on nurses, including those in rural hospitals. This study aimed to learn more about the experiences that rural acute care nurses had during COVID-19, to see what was stressful for them and what helped them to deal with their stress. This study used a qualitative descriptive design to gather this information. Rural nurses were interviewed about their experiences during COVID-19, and this information was summarized. It was found that they experienced stressors, such as poor working conditions and loneliness, in the home, workplace, and in the community. However, people in these places could also offer support. Rural nurses appreciated when their workplace had adequate staff and equipment present for them to complete their work. This study showed how important it is for management to understand the needs of nurses particularly during times of crisis.

Yes / An extensive literature documents the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, while a nascent one is beginning to detail the mental health impact. A limitation of existing work is that reported findings generally cannot be taken as causal estimates. In this study, we use a large-scale longitudinal survey coupled with a differences-in-differences research design to estimate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in the United Kingdom. We report substantial increases in psychological distress for the population overall during the first wave. These impacts were, however, not uniformly distributed with the costs in terms of mental health being much more pronounced for females, younger cohorts, the BAME community, and migrants. We also looked beyond socio-demographics to identify characteristics of the individual and their living environment which can predict who was least resilient to the mental health effects associated with the first wave. We find that people with financial worries, feeling lonely or living in overcrowded dwellings experienced significantly worse mental health deterioration during the first wave, ceteris paribus. / Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

Yes / Family carers of people with dementia have reported increased caring demands during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this qualitative study was to explore seven family carers’ accounts of dementia caregiving one year into the COVID-19 pandemic in England in relation to carer resilience. Themes described the complex challenges of caring during the pandemic, with interviewees burned out and ‘caring beyond capacity’ due to unmet needs within the caring role, therein highlighting the limitations of building individual resilience only. Timely practical support for carers is essential to protect their well-being and to ward against the potential consequences of carer burnout. / Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) grant ES/V004964/1. Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) grant ES/L001853/2. Alzheimer’s Society, grant number 348, AS-PR2-16-001.