Exploring COVID-19 patient's dignity and satisfaction: A cross-sectional study.

AIM: With the outbreak of COVID-19 and associated challenges such as increased workload for health providers and shortage of equipment, it became more challenging to maintain patients' dignity and satisfaction. This study evaluated the patients' dignity and satisfaction with COVID-19 in Kashan, Iran, in 2021. DESIGN: A cross-sectional descriptive study. METHODS: In total, 385 patients recovered from COVID-19 were selected through sequential sampling method. Data were collected using demographic, patient dignity inventory, and patient satisfaction questionnaires. Data were analysed using descriptive analysis, independent t-test, ANOVA, and Spearman-Brown coefficient. RESULTS: The mean age of patients was 50.57. The mean scores of patients' dignity and satisfaction were 1.622 ± 0.653 and 3.851 ± 0.548 (out of 5), respectively. The dignity rating was associated with age, gender, education, underlying disease, and length of hospital stay (p < 0.05); but patient satisfaction was only associated with education (p = 0.002). The results indicated that dignity and satisfaction have a significant direct correlation (r = -0.23, p < 0.001). PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: This study was designed based on the research priorities and needs in the field of clinical research and patients were involved in conducting the study via participating in data collection.

Ultrasound-accelerated synthesis of uniform DyVO4 nanoparticles as high activity visible-light-driven photocatalyst.

In order to obtain a highly efficient photocatalyst for water treatment, the sonochemical procedure applied to fabrication of excellent DyVO4 nanoparticles. A comparative study between two different synthesis routes (precipitation and sonochemical) was investigated in this work. Also, the influence of anionic, cationic and nonionic surfactant was studied on the formation of uniform particles. Further, the photocatalytic performance over the DyVO4 nanoparticles was studied under visible light by modifying the operational variables. Investigation of the photocatalytic mechanism process was conducted using hole scavengers for capturing reactive species. It was found that the DyVO4 nanoparticles sonochemically (a ultrasound probe with power of 60 W (18 KHz)) synthesized in presence of CTAB as an optimum condition, are uniform with average size of ~24 nm. The results showed that DyVO4 could remove near 88% of erythrosine, under the optimum condition of 0.05 g catalyst dosage and at initial pH 4. The DyVO4 maintained relatively high stability and reusability removal for erythrosine after five repeated cycles. The results could provide effective functional materials for elimination of chemical contaminants from wastewater through the photocatalytic process.

Sonochemical-assisted route for synthesis of spherical shaped holmium vanadate nanocatalyst for polluted waste water treatment.

Solar photocatalytic process has been shown to be an energy effective and eco-friendly degradation of unwanted pollutants present in the industrial wastewater. The present study introduces the preparation and characterization of novel holmium vanadate (HoVO4) nanostructures that fully used in the photodegradation efficiency of anionic and cationic organic pollutants. HoVO4 synthesized via a sonochemical-assisted route and triethylenetetramine (TETA) was used as a capping and precipitation agent. The experiments were carried out under a probe as sonication source, and its power was adjusted in 30 W (9 kHz), 50 W (15 kHz) and 80 W (24 kHz) for different samples. The obtained nanostructures were characterized by surface analytical and spectral techniques includes XRD, FT-IR, SEM, TEM and UV-visible spectra measurements. The HR-SEM images reveal that HoVO4 exists as a spindle-shape with spherical morphology together. HR-TEM images reveal that prepared catalyst has a spherical structure with uniform particle size. The results outline 67.6% elimination of methyl violet dye within 90 min under UV light in the presence of the optimal nano-sized formulation of 24.5 nm size. The prepared photocatalyst possesses high stability and reusability without appreciable loss of catalytic activity up to three runs.