Search

In 2019, the world public was confronted with the disease Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) for the first time, when the new Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The pandemic of this viral infection has led to the biggest public health crisis at the global level in the last hundred years, while a special challenge has been set for professionals dealing with mental health protection. Students were also particularly affected due to the movement restriction measures caused by the closure of higher education institutions. The disease COVID-19 is a systemic disease with pronounced problems of a respiratory nature, and SARS-CoV-2 is a virus from the family of RNA viruses. The incubation period of the viral infection is between two and fourteen days, and transmission by aerosol, respiratory droplets, and direct contact is very easy and fast. The most common symptom of this disease is fever. The COVID-19 disease pandemic had a negative effect on the mental health of the student population around the world, and female students rated their mental health worse than male students. The main problems with mental health can be classified above all the increased levels of depression, anxiety, and stress in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Depression is more common in students who care more about their health, in female students, and those with a lower socio-economic status. Also, persons who were, at some point, in contact with infected persons, without knowing about their illness, have more serious depressive reactions compared to those who haven't had such contact. Regarding anxiety reactions, students at the beginning of their studies experience anxiety reactions more often and those reactions are more intense compared to students in the last years of studies. The student population also showed high levels of stress reactions, which occur more often in female students, as well as in those students who come from urban areas. However, mental health problems can be overcome if the student population is provided with some form of social support or peer or expert consultation, depending on how much their mental health is impaired. The aim of this paper is to present the mental health of the student population around the world based on a review of the literature on the COVID-19 disease pandemic and to offer recommendations to reduce and prevent such reactions.

Introduction/Objective. More than three years have passed since the discovery of the new virus strain SARS-CoV-2, and the virus is still a challenge for all medical specialties. One of the most important characteristics is the tendency to develop thromboembolic complications, which are often lethal. The aim of this paper is to present the experience of the General Surgery Department of the Zemun Clinical Hospital Centar in the surgical treatment of patients with thromboembolic complications. Methods. The research was conceived as a retrospective study conducted in the period from March 2020 to March 2021. A total of 42 patients participated in the study and were divided into a group diagnosed with small and large bowel ischemia and a group diagnosed with acute limb ischemia. Results. In both groups, males were predominantly represented. The first group consisted of nine patients, all of whom had a clinical finding of acute abdomen and ileus, while seven of them also had a severe computed tomography image of bilateral pneumonia. In the second group, a smaller number of patients were initially candidates for thrombectomy, while in others, primary amputation treatment was approached. Mortality from the underlying disease in both groups was high. Conclusion. Moderate and severe forms of SARS-CoV-2 infection are associated with an inflammatory response leading to endothelial dysfunction accompanied by a high incidence of thromboembolic complications despite pharmacological prophylaxis. The current consensus supports the use of anticoagulants in all hospitalized patients with moderate to severe disease, as well as in critically ill patients.

Introduction. With the beginning of the pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus, restrictions on movement, the so-called “lockdown” were applied by many governments. As a result of these actions taken against the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, the use of digital devices has increased, i.e. the time spent in front of screens has increased. Methods. This paper dealt with a bibliometric analysis of scientific publications on the topic of screen time in children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Dimensions database was chosen as the data source. No time frame is given, but given the topic, publications from 2020-2023 are included in the analysis. The data were analyzed in the VOSviewer program, specified for bibliometric and visual data analysis. Results. Map of word co-occurrence show that there are three different clusters. In the red cluster, consisting of 53 terms, the most frequent terms are sleep (124), lifestyle (103) and restriction (83), while in the green cluster, consisting of 41 terms, family (126), education (88), relationship (86) are the most represented. The blue cluster consists of significantly fewer terms, 12 of them, of which anxiety (91), symptom (81), depression (58) are the most represented. Conclusion. Based on the bibliometric analysis, we can conclude that the scientists were mostly concerned with the impact of the screen time phenomenon on the physical health of children and adolescents. In addition, screen time has been linked to mental health, education and socio-emotional relationships.

Introduction/Objective. World Health Organization in January 2020 declared a pandemic of the coronavirus disease named COVID-19. The state of emergency in the Republic of Serbia began on March 15 2020, which greatly influenced the treatment of those patients who were not affected by COVID-19. The aim of this paper is to compare the most common ophthalmic surgeries during quarantine with those performed in 2019 in the same period. Methods. This is a retrospective study. We collected data from the operating protocol of the main ophthalmic operating room. We have followed the changes related to surgical procedures during these two years. Results. During the state of emergency, significantly more operations were performed on male patients than on female patients compared to the same period in 2019 (p = 0.043). In the observed period, in 2019 significantly more patients older than 65 were surgically treated (p < 0.001). During 2019, there were 397 (64.3%) elective and 220 (35.7%) urgent procedures, while for the same period next year there were 9 (9.1%) elective and 90 (90.9%) urgent procedures. Significantly more urgent interventions were performed during 2020 compared to 2019 (p < 0.001). Conclusion. The coronavirus pandemic has led to numerous changes in the treatment of ophthalmic patients. Many patients did not have access to adequate treatment, which certainly led to the impairment of many ophthalmic diseases.

Introduction/Objective. Autopsy represents the gold standard for determining cause and mechanisms of death. With this paper, the authors wanted to acquaint colleagues with our experiences while performing autopsies of COVID-positive deceased patients. Method. The study included total of 12 autopsies related to COVID-19 infection, performed in our forensic pathology institution, from which one autopsy of suspected patient and 11 autopsies of confirmed COVID-positive patients. Confirmation of infection was obtained by antemortem polymerase chain reaction analysis of oropharyngeal and nasopharyngeal swabs and by postmortem swabs taken from upper airways and lungs. Results. In five cases, cause of death was directly attributed to COVID-19 infection. In two cases cause of death was due to heart attack, in two cases due to gastrointestinal hemorrhage, in one case due to multiple injuries, in one case due to trauma complications and in one case due to gunshot injury. Conclusion. Large number of autopsies in which cause of death has been established to be other than COVID, along with importance of these cases for litigation, strongly emphasizes the importance of forensic autopsy of COVID-positive deceased. If adequate personal protective equipment is used, there should be minimal exposure risk to virus remaining in body tissues.