The novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) is widely spreading all over the world, causing mental health problems for most people. The medical staff is also under considerable psychological pressure. This study aimed to review all research carried out on the mental health status of health care workers (HCWs) to bring policymakers and managers’ attention. A literature search conducted through e-databases, including PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, and Web of Science (WoS) from December 2019 up to April 12th 2020. All cross- sectional studies published in English which assessed the health workers’ psychological well-being during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic included. Study quality was analyzed using NHLBI Study Quality assessment tools. One hundred relevant articles were identified through systematic search; of which eleven studies were eligible for this review. Their quality score was acceptable. The lowest reported prevalence of anxiety, depression, and stress among HCWs was 24.1%, 12.1%, and 29.8%, respectively. In addition, the highest reported values for the aforementioned parameters were 67.55%, 55.89%, and 62.99%, respectively. Nurses, female workers, front-line health care workers, younger medical staff, and workers in areas with higher infection rates reported more severe degrees of all psychological symptoms than other health care workers. Moreover, vicarious traumatization in non-front-line nurses and the general public was higher than that of the front-line nurses. During SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, the health care workers face aggravated psychological pressure and even mental illness. It would be recommended to the policymakers and managers to adopt the supportive, encouragement & motivational, protective, and training & educational interventions, especially through information and communication platform.

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The mental health of healthcare workers in the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review.

Summary Background The comparative performance of different clinical sampling methods for diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection by RT-PCR among populations with suspected infection remains unclear. This meta-analysis aims to systematically compare the diagnostic performance of different clinical specimen collection methods. Methods In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we systematically searched PubMed, Embase, MEDLINE, Web of Science, medRxiv, bioRxiv, SSRN, and Research Square from Jan 1, 2000, to Nov 16, 2020. We included original clinical studies that examined the performance of nasopharyngeal swabs and any additional respiratory specimens for the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection among individuals presenting in ambulatory care. Studies without data on paired samples, or those that only examined different samples from confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases were not useful for examining diagnostic performance of a test and were excluded. Diagnostic performance, including sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value, was examined using random effects models and double arcsine transformation. Findings Of the 5577 studies identified in our search, 23 studies including 7973 participants with 16 762 respiratory samples were included. Respiratory specimens examined in these studies included 7973 nasopharyngeal swabs, 1622 nasal swabs, 6110 saliva samples, 338 throat swabs, and 719 pooled nasal and throat swabs. Using nasopharyngeal swabs as the gold standard, pooled nasal and throat swabs gave the highest sensitivity of 97% (95% CI 93–100), whereas lower sensitivities were achieved by saliva (85%, 75–93) and nasal swabs (86%, 77–93) and a much lower sensitivity by throat swabs (68%, 35–94). A comparably high positive predictive value was obtained by pooled nasal and throat (97%, 90–100) and nasal swabs (96%, 87–100) and a slightly lower positive predictive value by saliva (93%, 88–97). Throat swabs have the lowest positive predictive value of 75% (95% CI 45–96). Comparably high specificities (range 97–99%) and negative predictive value (range 95–99%) were observed among different clinical specimens. Comparison between health-care-worker collection and self-collection for pooled nasal and throat swabs and nasal swabs showed comparable diagnostic performance. No significant heterogeneity was observed in the analysis of pooled nasal and throat swabs and throat swabs, whereas moderate to substantial heterogeneity (I2 ≥30%) was observed in studies on saliva and nasal swabs. Interpretation Our review suggests that, compared with the gold standard of nasopharyngeal swabs, pooled nasal and throat swabs offered the best diagnostic performance of the alternative sampling approaches for diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection in ambulatory care. Saliva and nasal swabs gave comparable and very good diagnostic performance and are clinically acceptable alternative specimen collection methods. Throat swabs gave a much lower sensitivity and positive predictive value and should not be recommended. Self-collection for pooled nasal and throat swabs and nasal swabs was not associated with any significant impairment of diagnostic accuracy. Our results also provide a useful reference framework for the proper interpretation of SARS-CoV-2 testing results using different clinical specimens. Funding Hong Kong Research Grants Council.

Diagnostic performance of different sampling approaches for SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR testing: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objective We aimed to systematically identify the possible risk factors responsible for severe cases. Methods We searched PubMed, Embase, Web of science and Cochrane Library for epidemiological studies of confirmed COVID-19, which include information about clinical characteristics and severity of patients’ disease. We analyzed the potential associations between clinical characteristics and severe cases. Results We identified a total of 41 eligible studies including 21060 patients with COVID-19. Severe cases were potentially associated with advanced age (Standard Mean Difference (SMD) = 1.73, 95% CI: 1.34–2.12), male gender (Odds Ratio (OR) = 1.51, 95% CI:1.33–1.71), obesity (OR = 1.89, 95% CI: 1.44–2.46), history of smoking (OR = 1.40, 95% CI:1.06–1.85), hypertension (OR = 2.42, 95% CI: 2.03–2.88), diabetes (OR = 2.40, 95% CI: 1.98–2.91), coronary heart disease (OR: 2.87, 95% CI: 2.22–3.71), chronic kidney disease (CKD) (OR = 2.97, 95% CI: 1.63–5.41), cerebrovascular disease (OR = 2.47, 95% CI: 1.54–3.97), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (OR = 2.88, 95% CI: 1.89–4.38), malignancy (OR = 2.60, 95% CI: 2.00–3.40), and chronic liver disease (OR = 1.51, 95% CI: 1.06–2.17). Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) (OR = 39.59, 95% CI: 19.99–78.41), shock (OR = 21.50, 95% CI: 10.49–44.06) and acute kidney injury (AKI) (OR = 8.84, 95% CI: 4.34–18.00) were most likely to prevent recovery. In summary, patients with severe conditions had a higher rate of comorbidities and complications than patients with non-severe conditions. Conclusion Patients who were male, with advanced age, obesity, a history of smoking, hypertension, diabetes, malignancy, coronary heart disease, hypertension, chronic liver disease, COPD, or CKD are more likely to develop severe COVID-19 symptoms. ARDS, shock and AKI were thought to be the main hinderances to recovery.

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Clinical determinants of the severity of COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

The novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the cause of a rapidly spreading illness, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), affecting more than seventeen million people around the world. Diagnosis and treatment guidelines for clinicians caring for patients are needed. In the early stage, we have issued “A rapid advice guideline for the diagnosis and treatment of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) infected pneumonia (standard version)”; now there are many direct evidences emerged and may change some of previous recommendations and it is ripe for develop an evidence-based guideline. We formed a working group of clinical experts and methodologists. The steering group members proposed 29 questions that are relevant to the management of COVID-19 covering the following areas: chemoprophylaxis, diagnosis, treatments, and discharge management. We searched the literature for direct evidence on the management of COVID-19, and assessed its certainty generated recommendations using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. Recommendations were either strong or weak, or in the form of ungraded consensus-based statement. Finally, we issued 34 statements. Among them, 6 were strong recommendations for, 14 were weak recommendations for, 3 were weak recommendations against and 11 were ungraded consensus-based statement. They covered topics of chemoprophylaxis (including agents and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) agents), diagnosis (including clinical manifestations, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), respiratory tract specimens, IgM and IgG antibody tests, chest computed tomography, chest x-ray, and CT features of asymptomatic infections), treatments (including lopinavir-ritonavir, umifenovir, favipiravir, interferon, remdesivir, combination of antiviral drugs, hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine, interleukin-6 inhibitors, interleukin-1 inhibitors, glucocorticoid, qingfei paidu decoction, lianhua qingwen granules/capsules, convalescent plasma, lung transplantation, invasive or noninvasive ventilation, and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO)), and discharge management (including discharge criteria and management plan in patients whose RT-PCR retesting shows SARS-CoV-2 positive after discharge). We also created two figures of these recommendations for the implementation purpose. We hope these recommendations can help support healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s40779-020-00270-8.pdf

Chemoprophylaxis, diagnosis, treatments, and discharge management of COVID-19: An evidence-based clinical practice guideline (updated version)

Evidence-based health economics: from effectiveness to efficiency in systematic review.

Methodological quality (risk of bias) assessment is an important step before study initiation usage. Therefore, accurately judging study type is the first priority, and the choosing proper tool is also important. In this review, we introduced methodological quality assessment tools for randomized controlled trial (including individual and cluster), animal study, non-randomized interventional studies (including follow-up study, controlled before-and-after study, before-after/ pre-post study, uncontrolled longitudinal study, interrupted time series study), cohort study, case-control study, cross-sectional study (including analytical and descriptive), observational case series and case reports, comparative effectiveness research, diagnostic study, health economic evaluation, prediction study (including predictor finding study, prediction model impact study, prognostic prediction model study), qualitative study, outcome measurement instruments (including patient - reported outcome measure development, content validity, structural validity, internal consistency, cross-cultural validity/ measurement invariance, reliability, measurement error, criterion validity, hypotheses testing for construct validity, and responsiveness), systematic review and meta-analysis, and clinical practice guideline. The readers of our review can distinguish the types of medical studies and choose appropriate tools. In one word, comprehensively mastering relevant knowledge and implementing more practices are basic requirements for correctly assessing the methodological quality.

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Zhi-Hua Yang

Papers

Methodological quality (risk of bias) assessment tools for primary and secondary medical studies: what are they and which is better?