Background: Previous research has assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health (MH). How the pandemic changed healthcare resource utilisation for MH conditions was investigated less, however, in particular in Italy.
Methods: Data concerning outpatient visits in child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHSs), access to emergency departments (EDs), hospital admissions and drug prescriptions collected in administrative databases of the Lombardy Region, Italy, concerning adolescents 12-17 years old and occurring in the 2016-2021 period were analysed.Annual and monthly prevalence of healthcare (CAHMS/ED visits/hospital admissions) use for MH conditions and of psychotropic drug prescriptions were estimated. A negative binomial regression model was used to model the pre-pandemic monthly number of prevalent cases by gender. The total number of pandemic (1 March 2020 to 31 December 2021) cases predicted from the model was compared with the number of observed cases.
Results: The overall annual rate of healthcare service utilisation slightly increased in the 2016-2019 period (from 63.8‰ to 67.8‰), decreased in 2020 (57.1‰) and returned to values similar to 2016 (64.9‰) the following year. A 2% relative increase was observed in girls, and a 10% decrease in boys, when comparing the prevalence in 2021 with that in 2019. Differences between genders were particularly evident for ED attendance, with an observed/predicted cases ratio in 2021 of 0.81 (95% CI 0.79 to 0.83) in boys, and 1.18 (95% CI 1.16 to 1.20) in girls, and for psychotropic drug prescriptions (0.83 (95% CI 0.82 to 0.84) and 1.24 (95% CI 1.23 to 1.25), respectively).
Conclusions: The current study confirms that the use of health services for MH conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic increased among adolescent girls but decreased among boys, and that gender differences emerged in the MH impact of the pandemic.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjpo-2024-002524 | DOI Listing |
BMC Infect Dis
December 2024
Virology Unit, Viral Hepatitis Laboratory, Institut Pasteur du Maroc, 1 Place Louis Pasteur, Casablanca, 20360, Morocco.
To assess the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 booster dose on the immune response against COVID-19, we conducted a cross-sectional study in the Casablanca-Settat region of Morocco. The study included 2,802 participants from 16 provinces, all of whom had received three doses of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. IgG antibodies targeting the S1 RBD subunit of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein were quantified using the SARS-CoV-2 IgG II Quant assay and measured on the Abbott Architect i2000SR instrument.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Infect Dis
December 2024
Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
Background: To compare the effectiveness of four surveillance strategies for detecting SARS-CoV-2 within the homeless shelter population in Hamilton, ON and assess participant adherence over time for each surveillance method.
Methods: This was an open-label, cluster-randomized controlled trial conducted in eleven homeless shelters in Hamilton, Ontario, from April 2020 to January 2021. All participants who consented to the study and participated in the surveillance were eligible for testing by self-swabbing.
BMC Infect Dis
December 2024
Department of Infectious Disease, Department of Internal Medicine, Chonnam National University Medical School, 42, Jebong Ro, Donggu, Gwangju, 61469, South Korea.
Background: Invasive fungal infections have been reported as complications with significant mortality and morbidity in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. This study aimed to evaluate the clinical characteristics and outcomes of candidaemia patients with COVID-19 and to investigate the association between COVID-19 and mortality in candidaemia patients.
Methods: This retrospective study included candidaemia patients aged 18 years or older admitted to four university-affiliated tertiary hospitals in South Korea between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2022.
BMC Infect Dis
December 2024
KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, P.O. Box 230, Kilifi, Kenya.
Increased immune evasion by emerging and highly mutated SARS-CoV-2 variants is a key challenge to the control of COVID-19. The majority of these mutations mainly target the spike protein, allowing the new variants to escape the immunity previously raised by vaccination and/or infection by earlier variants of SARS-CoV-2. In this study, we investigated the neutralizing capacity of antibodies against emerging variants of interest circulating between May 2023 and October 2024 using sera from representative samples of the Kenyan population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Environ Manage
December 2024
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Electronic address:
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