scholarly journals Satisfaction With Informal Volunteering During the COVID-19 Crisis: An Empirical Study Considering a Swiss Online Volunteering Platform

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 1142-1151
Author(s):  
Stefan Trautwein ◽  
Florian Liberatore ◽  
Jörg Lindenmeier ◽  
Georg von Schnurbein

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a huge wave of compassion. In particular, online volunteering platforms established channeling help for high-risk groups. It is unclear under which conditions volunteers were satisfied with their COVID-19 volunteering mediated by these platforms and whether they will continue their engagement after the crisis. Therefore, and considering personal susceptibility to COVID-19 infection, this study analyzes the effects of different platform support for volunteers and the fulfillment of volunteers’ motives. The study is based on an online survey of a sample of 565 volunteers who registered at and were placed by a Swiss online platform. Fulfillment of distinct volunteer motives and platform support drive COVID-19 volunteering satisfaction. Moreover, motive fulfillment and platform-related support indirectly impact willingness to volunteer long-term via volunteering satisfaction. Finally, the empirical results show that motive fulfillment and the effect of platform support are contingent on perceived susceptibility to infection.

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (14) ◽  
pp. 1400-1406
Author(s):  
Zahra Hasan ◽  
Sharaf Shah ◽  
Rumina Hasan ◽  
Shoaib Rao ◽  
Manzoor Ahmed ◽  
...  

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection prevalence in Pakistan has been increasing in high-risk groups, including people who inject drugs (PWID) and transgender hijra sex workers (TG-HSWs) nationwide. Effective control of HIV requires early diagnosis of the infection. We investigated recency of HIV infections in newly-diagnosed cases in PWID and TG-HSWs. This was an observational study with convenience sampling. Overall, 210 HIV-positive subjects comprising an equal number of PWID and TG-HSWs were included. Antibody avidity was tested using the Maxim HIV-1 Limiting Antigen Avidity (LAg) EIA (Maxim Biomedical, Inc. Rockville, Maryland, USA). The mean age of study subjects was 29.5 years: PWID, 28.5 years and TG-HSWs, 30.4 years. Study subjects were married, 27%, or unmarried. Eighteen percent of individuals had recently-acquired HIV infections: 19% of PWID and 17% of TG-HSWs. Eighty-two percent of individuals had long-term HIV infections: 81% of PWID and 83% of TG-HSWs. This is the first study identification of recent HIV-1 infections in Pakistan. We show that most newly-diagnosed HIV patients in the high-risk groups studied had long-term infections. There is an urgent need for intervention in these groups to facilitate early diagnosis and treatment of HIV infection to reduce transmission in Pakistan.


2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (18_suppl) ◽  
pp. 5509-5509 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. C. Swart

5509 Background: ICON1 and a meta-analysis of all relevant trials demonstrated an improvement in 5 year recurrence-free and overall survival (RFS and OS) for women with early-stage epithelial ovarian cancer (ES EOC) treated with adjuvant chemotherapy compared to no adjuvant chemotherapy. We aimed to determine if this initial benefit is maintained long-term and whether benefit is different with different risk groups of patients defined by stage, grade and histology. Method: 477 women with ES EOC were recruited from centres in Italy (271 women) UK (195) Switzerland (11) between August 1991 and January 2000. 5-year results were presented at ASCO 2001. Systematic long-term follow up was planned and completed in May 2006. Results: With a median follow-up of 9.2 years, 168 women have developed recurrent disease or died and 144 women have died. The Hazard Ratio (HR) for RFS of 0.70 in favour of adjuvant chemotherapy (95% CI 0.52–0.95 p= 0.023) translated into an improvement of 10-year absolute RFS of 10% from 57 to 67%. For OS, HR was 0.74 (95% CI 0.53–1.02 p= 0.066), a corresponding improvement in 10-year absolute OS of 8% from 64% to 72%. 26% of patients died from causes other than ovarian cancer. Stage I patients were grouped as low (Ia, grade 1), medium (Ia grade 2, Ib or Ic grade 1) and high risk (Ia, grade 3, Ib or IC grade 2 or 3, any clear cell). The test of interaction between risk groups and adjuvant treatment for RFS and OS was 0.055 and 0.13, respectively. The HR, 95%CI and p value are summarised in the table . Conclusions The long-term benefit of adjuvant treatment on RFS is confirmed. There is clear evidence that adjuvant chemotherapy reduces the risk of recurrence/death or death alone in high-risk patients but not in the low-risk group. [Table: see text] [Table: see text]


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Christine Greil ◽  
Monika Engelhardt ◽  
Jürgen Finke ◽  
Ralph Wäsch

The development of new inhibitory and immunological agents and combination therapies significantly improved response rates and survival of patients diagnosed with multiple myeloma (MM) in the last decade, but the disease is still considered to be incurable by current standards and the prognosis is dismal especially in high-risk groups and in relapsed and/or refractory patients. Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT) may enable long-term survival and even cure for individual patients via an immune-mediated graft-versus-myeloma (GvM) effect, but remains controversial due to relevant transplant-related risks, particularly immunosuppression and graft-versus-host disease, and a substantial non-relapse mortality. The decreased risk of disease progression may outweigh this treatment-related toxicity for young, fit patients in high-risk constellations with otherwise often poor long-term prognosis. Here, allo-SCT should be considered within clinical trials in first-line as part of a tandem approach to separate myeloablation achieved by high-dose chemotherapy with autologous SCT, and following allo-SCT with a reduced-intensity conditioning to minimize treatment-related organ toxicities but allow GvM effect. Our review aims to better define the role of allo-SCT in myeloma treatment particularly in the context of new immunomodulatory approaches.


Author(s):  
Kevin C De Braganca ◽  
Roger J Packer

Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor in pediatric patients. Patients are presently stratified to either standard or high-risk groups based on clinical and pathologic criteria. Approximately 80% of patients with standard risk disease are cured of their primary disease. High-risk and recurrent disease groups have a poorer outcome; 5-year progression-free survival is only 65% with high-risk disease. Disease control after recurrence is very poor. Treatment is multimodal and also aims to limit short- and long-term toxicities. Recent identification of four molecular subtypes of medulloblastoma may change risk assignment and therapy. Addressing the medical and psychosocial issues of survivors continues to improve the quality of life for these patients beyond the disease’s treatment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
L Grammatico-Guillon ◽  
C Hermetet ◽  
C Gaborit ◽  
L Laporte ◽  
A Guillon

Abstract Background The consequences of the ageing population concerning ICU-hospitalization need to be adequately described, especially acute respiratory infections (ARI) strongly associated with Elderly. The study aimed to assess the long-term outcomes of ARI surviving ICU hospitalization in patients over 80 yo. Methods A retrospective multicentre cohort study was performed, based on hospital discharge databases in one French region (2.5 million inhabitants). Patients with ARI in ICU were selected according to specific ICD-10 diagnosis codes recorded and matched with a control population (patient undergoing a cataract surgery), using a propensity score (matching algorithm 1:1 ratio, caliper 0.002) with the matching variables (age, sex, frailty score, chronic heart disease, chronic pulmonary disease and cancer). Analyzes of this matched population were performed to determine their 2-year in-hospital mortality, healthcare utilization and evolution of the frailty score during the 2-year period before/after the inclusion stay. Results A total of 1,658 hospital stays for ARI after 80 yo were identified, with 438 dead (26%) during the initial stay. After matching with the cataract population, 988 patients were selected in each group without difference in the propensity score. ARI lead to an important increase of healthcare use during the 2 years after discharge. The patients that were discharged from hospital after ARI requiring ICU, had a 23-fold increase of death at 90 days and 4-fold at 2 years and the evolution of the frailty score was 1.6 fold higher than the cataract population. Conclusions Elderly patients with severe ARI survived from their ICU stay in 75%, but have a major risk of death in the following months, and an important increase in healthcare consumption. Our findings provide data for more informed goals-of-care discussions and may help target post-ICU discharge services for these high-risk groups. Key messages Elderly patients with severe acute respiratory infection survived ICU in 75%, but had a major risk of death in the following months, added to a substantial increase in healthcare consumption. These findings provide data for more informed goals-of-care discussions and may help target interventions for these high-risk groups.


2009 ◽  
Vol 194 (4) ◽  
pp. 296-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Robinson ◽  
Ricardo E. Jorge

SummaryPreventive intervention for first-episode depression is an exciting, emerging field. Many questions remain, however. Should we target patients who have sub-syndromal symptom elevations (i.e. indicated intervention) or should we intervene in high-risk groups (i.e. selective intervention)? Furthermore, should primary outcomes be incident depressions or long-term decreases in morbidity or mortality?


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toshinori Chiba ◽  
Taiki Oka ◽  
Toshitaka Hamamura ◽  
Nao Kobayashi ◽  
Masaru Honjo ◽  
...  

SummaryBackgroundRising rates of suicide, the most dreadful consequence of mental health effects elicited by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) are cause for grave concern. However, the exact association between mental health problems and suicide remains largely unknown in relation to COVID-19.MethodsTo determine the impact of COVID-19 on suicide trajectory, we used an interrupted time-series design to analyze monthly suicides rates extracted from Japan’s national database. We next used mixed-effects regression models to investigate the relationship between the nationwide suicide increase in August 2020 and psychiatric states of 4,348 individuals from an online survey performed immediately before (December 2019) and during (August 2020) the pandemic. Psychiatric states included depression, anxiety, and COVID-19-related PTSD, a form of severe event-related stress.FindingsIn Japan, suicides had gradually decreased before COVID-19 (β = −0·7×10−3, t57 = −14·2, p = 8·6×10−46), but increased drastically after a state of emergency was declared in April 2020 (β = 0·9×10−2, t57 = 17·3, p = 2·3×10−67). We found that PTSD symptoms reliably predict COVID-19’s impact on suicide rates (β = 6·3×10−4, t3936 = 5·96, p = 2·7×10−9). In contrast, depression scores are a reliable indicator of stress vulnerability (i.e. future suicide increases, β = 0·001, t3936 = 6·6, p = 4·5×10−11). Simulations revealed that a one-point reduction in PTSD score could decrease suicides by up to 3·1 per ten million people per month in Japan.InterpretationPTSD symptoms may help to identify high-risk groups so as to increase efficacy of prevention policies.FundingKDDI collaborative research contract, the Innovative Science and Technology Initiative for Security (JPJ004596), ATLA and AMED (JP20dm0307008).Research in contextEvidence before this studyWe searched PubMed on December 2, 2020, for “COVID” and “suicid*” in the titles or abstracts of published articles and obtained 269 hits. No language restrictions were applied to the search. Nearly all previous articles on suicide and COVID-19 have reported simulation studies of suicide counts and rates in case studies, editorials, letters, and commentaries. To date, no study has analyzed the association between psychiatric states and suicide increases in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.Added value of this studyTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first study reporting a concrete approach to predict suicide rate increases from psychiatric states during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings indicate that PTSD symptoms are a reliable surrogate endpoint of pandemic-related suicide increase.Implications of all available evidenceThis work provides a new perspective on preparing guidelines for suicide prevention. Efforts should focus on reducing PTSD severity for single individuals and populations to reduce the overall suicide risk.


Blood ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 138 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 4600-4600
Author(s):  
Mert Bektaş ◽  
Tuğrul Elverdi ◽  
Ayşe Salihoğlu ◽  
Muhlis Cem Ar ◽  
Şeniz Öngören ◽  
...  

Abstract Introduction and Objectives: For patients (pts) with chronic myeloid leukemia in chronic phase (CML-CP), four baseline prognostic scores are commonly used including the Sokal score and the most recently introduced EUTOS long-term survival (ELTS) score. The ELTS score was shown to be superior to the Sokal score for predicting survival. The aim of the study is to evaluate the value of ELTS score on predicting disease progression and survival in Turkish pts with CML-CP. Material and Method: Demographic, laboratory and clinical features, disease responses to tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) therapy and survival of CML-CP pts, who received upfront imatinib (IM) between 2003 and 2018 were analyzed retrospectively. Treatment responses were reevaluated according to European LeukemiaNet 2013 recommendations. Risk groups analysis, discrimination and hazard ratios (HRs) were evaluated with Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed to examine the effects of scores on predicting overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). Results: A total of 185 pts were included, of which 103 (55.7%) were male and median age was 47 years (range, 16 - 81 years) (Table 1). The percentages of pts with low-, intermediate-, and high-risk ELTS scores were 60.5%, 25.9%, and 13.5%, respectively. For the Sokal score, these percentages were 37.3%, 40.5%, and 22.2% respectively. For Sokal high-risk pts, only 46.3% were classified as high-risk according to the ELTS score. Similarly, 44% of pts with intermediate Sokal risk had low-risk ELTS score (Fig. 1). Seventy-seven pts (41.6%) had at least one comorbidity, and the most common comorbidities were hypertension (21.6%), diabetes mellitus (13%), and ischemic heart disease (12.4%) (Table 1). The median durations of IM therapy and follow-up were 2728 (range, 14 - 6320 days) and 3473 (range, 71 - 6320 days) days, respectively. Complete hematologic and early molecular (BCR-ABL1 IS <10% at 3 months) responses at 3 months were 95.6% and 75.9%, respectively. Complete cytogenetic and major molecular response rates at 6 and 12 months were 72.3% and 86.1% and 45.4% and 54%, respectively. Thirty-five pts (18.9%) switched to second-generation TKI therapy and 6 pts (3.2%) progressed to advanced-phase disease during the follow-up (Table 1). For PFS, with reference to the low-risk Sokal score, the HR of high-risk groups was 9.301 (95% CI: 1.086-79.656, p=0.042) (Fig. 2A). Similarly, with reference to the low-risk ELTS score, the HR of intermediate- and high-risk groups were 4.744 (95% CI: 0.43-52.314, p=0.204) and 14.642 (95% CI: 1.523-140.791, p=0.020) (Fig. 2B). Regarding OS, with reference to the low-risk Sokal score, the HR of the intermediate- and high-risk groups were 1.835 (95% CI: 0.564-5.964, p=0.313) and 6.412 (95% CI: 2.11-19.489, p=0.001), respectively (Fig. 2C). With reference to the low-risk ELTS score, the HR of the intermediate- and high-risk groups were, 3.263 (95% CI: 1.242-8.576, p=0.016) and 7.258 (95% CI: 2.762-19.074, p<0.001) respectively (Fig. 2D). In the ROC analysis, the ELTS score was superior than the Sokal risk score for both predicting PFS (AUC=0.820 vs. AUC=0.818) and OS (AUC=0.762 vs. AUC=0.744). During the follow-up, 27 (14.6%) pts died, of which 6 died due to CML progression and causes of death were unrelated to CML in 21. Conclusion: In our study, we showed that the ELTS score could successfully predict high-risk pts compatible with the literature. With higher hazard ratios and better risk group stratifications, the ELTS score outperformed the Sokal score. The ELTS score can help clinicians to better discriminate poor prognostic pts and can promote optimal treatment strategies for these pts with potentially worse prognosis. Figure 1 Figure 1. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Author(s):  
Lars Sävendahl ◽  
Michel Polak ◽  
Philippe Backeljauw ◽  
Joanne C Blair ◽  
Bradley S Miller ◽  
...  

Abstract Context GH treatment has a generally good safety profile; however, concerns of increased mortality risk in adulthood have been raised. Objective Assessing the long-term safety of GH treatment in clinical practice. Design Two multicenter longitudinal observational studies: NordiNet® International Outcome Study (2006–2016, Europe) and ANSWER Program (2002–2016, USA). Setting Data collected from 676 clinics. Patients Pediatric patients treated with GH, classified into three risk groups based on diagnosis. Intervention Daily GH treatment. Main Outcome Measures Incidence rates (events/1000 patient-years) of adverse drug reactions (ADRs), serious adverse events (SAEs), and serious ADRs, and their relationship to the GH dose. Results The combined studies comprised 37,702 patients (68.4% in low-risk, 27.5% in intermediate-risk, and 4.1% in high-risk groups) and 130,476 patient-years of exposure. The low-risk group included children born small for gestational age (SGA; 20.7%) and non-SGA children (e.g. with GH deficiency; 79.3%). Average GH dose up to the first adverse event (AE) decreased with increasing risk category. Patients without AEs received higher average GH doses than patients with >1 AE across all groups. A significant inverse relationship with GH dose was shown for ADR and SAE incidence rates in the low-risk group (P = 0.0029 and P = 0.0003, respectively) and the non-SGA subgroup (P = 0.0022 and P = 0.0015, respectively), and for SAEs in the intermediate- and high-risk groups (P = 0.0017 and P = 0.0480, respectively). Conclusions We observed no indication of increased mortality risk nor AE incidence related to GH dose in any risk group.


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