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Background: Epilepsy is one of the most frequent and serious brain disorders. The nature of the disorder and the unpredictability of seizures usually puts patients in a state of apprehension and anticipation, which creates a continuous condition of anxiety. COVID-19 pandemic has created a state of generalized anxiety all over the world. It is expected that patients with epilepsy (PWE) will suffer from more anxiety during the pandemic. This cross-sectional study was applied on 290 PWE. Data were collected by personal interview with each patient using GAD-7 scale for diagnosing anxiety and assessing its severity. We aimed to assess the prevalence of anxiety and to assess its risk factors in PWE during COVID-19 pandemic. Results: We found that 52.4% of PWE suffered from anxiety. Not working, low financial status, fear of infection and death by COVID-19, fear of job loss, had job changes during pandemic, increased seizures rate during pandemic, increased ER visits, and lack of drug adherence during the pandemic, are significantly associated with increased risk of anxiety. Conclusions: COVID-19 pandemic has a serious effect on the psychological and the physical wellbeing of PWE. There was an increased rate of anxiety during COVID-19 pandemic in PWE with its subsequent burden on those patients. So, these patients are in a high need of care and support during the pandemic.
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BACKGROUND: Health care workers caring for patients with COVID-19 pandemic are prone to extraordinary stressors and psychological problems. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence and risk factors of major depressive disorder among health care providers who are caring for patients with COVID-19. METHODS: Two hundred-seventy of health care workers were screened for depressive symptoms by DASS-21 Questionnaire. Only 152 of the participants accepted to be interviewed using SCID-I for diagnosis of major depressive disorder. RESULTS: According to DASS-21, 28.1% of HCWs had mild-to-moderate depressive symptoms, and 64.8% with severe symptoms. Of 152 who were interviewed using SCID-I, 74.3% were diagnosed with major depression disorder.Young age, decreased sleep hours, female sex, past history of a psychiatric disease, fear of COVID-19 infection for themselves or their relatives, and fear of death with COVID-19 for themselves or their relatives were significant predictors for major depressive disorder and its severity. CONCLUSION: Major depressive disorder is common among HCWs during COVID-19 pandemic. Screening for depression, particularly for young females, and early treatment are recommended.
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BACKGROUND: Stigma has been noticed towards patients with COVID-19 in several regions of the world. This social discrimination has contributed to delay in diagnosis and treatment. Also, it may increase the suffering of the patients leading to poor outcome of the illness. Stigma can be assessed with the use of a valid and reliable instrument developed and adapted to our culture. Our objective was to analyze the psychometric properties of COVID-19 Infection Stigma Scale (CISS) for measuring the social stigma among patients with COVID-19 in Egypt. A cross-sectional study that included 182 COVID-19 patients was carried out. The reliability, the convergent validity, and the external and internal consistency of the scale were measured. Factor analysis was used to exclude the weak items. RESULTS: The mean of the COVID-19 Infection Stigma Scale scores was 34.97±10.35 which was higher than 50% of the score. Absence of the floor and ceiling effects was observed. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for scale reliability ranged from 0.75 to 0.94 with 0.82 for the total score. The convergent validity coefficients ranged from 0.36 to 0.63. Test-retest validity Pearson's correlation coefficients ranged from 0.72 to 0.92 with 0.89 for the total score. The split half correlation coefficient was 0.86, and the reliability coefficient was 0.92. Both were acceptable correlation coefficients for internal consistency of the scale. Factor analysis showed two factors had latent root greater than 1. The rotated component matrix of the 2 factors revealed that all questions had r value more than 0.30, which means that no need to exclude any of them. CONCLUSION: The results showed that the COVID-19 Infection Stigma Scale is a valid and reliable instrument for the Egyptian people. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s41983-021-00317-0.
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Introduction. The objective of this work was to define the frequency and severity of steroid related behavioral side effects in children with steroid sensitive idiopathic nephrotic syndrome (SSNS) during Treatment for relapse. Methods. 30 pediatric patients with steroid sensitive nephrotic syndrome were studied; known as SSNS at complete remission or low dose of Prednisolone and have relapse on follow up. All children in this study were subjected to full history taking, thorough clinical examination, assessment socioeconomic standard, and assessment of pediatric quality of life, a battery of psychometric tests included pediatric anxiety, depression, and aggression scores. Results. Our results revealed that there are highly significant increase in the mean values of anxiety, depression and aggression among cases starts to appear on week one and extends to three, five and seven weeks compared to baseline. In the seventh week of follow up cases show significant positive correlation between prednisone doses and mean values of anxiety and depression scores and aggression. Conclusion. we concluded that all studied children with SSNS often experience significant problems with anxiety, depression, and increased aggression during high dose steroid therapy.