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Objectives. To explore the frequency and impact of violence against healthcare workers in Argentina and to compare it with the rest of their Latin American peers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and methods. A cross-sectional study was conducted by applying an electronic survey on Latin American medical and non-medical personnel who carried out health care tasks since March 2020. We used Poisson regression to estimate crude (PR) and adjusted (aPR) Prevalence Ratios with their respective 95% confidence intervals. Results. A total of 3544 participants from 19 countries answered the survey; 1992 (56.0%) resided in Argentina. Of these, 62.9% experienced at least one act of violence; 97.7% reported verbal violence and 11.8% physical violence. Of those who were assaulted, 41.5% experienced violence at least once a week. Health personnel from Argentina experienced violence more frequently than those from other countries (62.9% vs. 54.6%, p<0.001), and these events were more frequent and stressful (p<0.05). In addition, Argentinean health personnel reported having considered changing their healthcare tasks and/or desired to leave their profession more frequently (p<0.001). In the Poisson regression, we found that participants from Argentina had a higher prevalence of violence than health workers from the region (14.6%; p<0.001). Conclusions. There was a high prevalence of violence against health personnel in Argentina during the COVID-19 pandemic. These events had a strong negative impact on those who suffered them. Our data suggest that violence against health personnel may have been more frequent in Argentina than in other regions of the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Objective: To evaluate the self-perception of cardiology residents in Argentina regarding their abilities to help their patients stop smoking, as well as their opinions about their knowledge and skills in this area., Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out using secondary data from a study carried out in five Latin American countries and Spain, focusing on the information provided by cardiology residents in Argentina. Discrete variables were expressed as median and interquartile range, and categorical variables were expressed as percentages, and were analyzed using the chi-square test or Fisher's exact test, depending on the relative frequency of the expected values., Results: 447 residents participated; 87.5% routinely provided brief advice to quit smoking, and 11.6% used validated questionnaires to assess the degree of addiction. Furthermore, 32.1% stated that they prescribed pharmacological treatment, but 53.1% were only familiar with a single drug. When asked about their self-perception of getting their patients to stop smoking, the median response was 5 (scale from 1 to 10); only 13.7% responded with a score of 8 or more., Conclusions: The present study suggests that cardiology residents in Argentina recognize the importance of carrying out smoking cessation interventions, but a high proportion of them do not feel qualified to do so., Competing Interests: Conflictos de interés: Los autores declaran no tener ningún conflicto de interés. Si bien el Dr. Andrés Rosende es consultor de la Organización Panamericana de la Salud, el contenido de la presente publicación no necesariamente representa la visión o política de la organización

Bayés's syndrome is a clinical entity based on the association between advanced interatrial block and the development of supraventricular tachyarrhythmia, being atrial fibrillation (AF) the most frequent. This association was discovered by Prof. Antoni Bayés de Luna in the '80s. Further studies by other groups found a strong relationship between Bayés's syndrome and thromboembolic phenomena, being stroke the most serious. Moreover, patients with this syndrome have an increased incidence of cognitive impairment and dementia. This observation triggered the question about whether the use of anticoagulation therapy prior to the documentation of AF could prevent A-IAB associated thromboembolic events. There are ongoing studies in different phases of development aiming to compare the efficacy of anticoagulation in patients with A-IAB with no prior documentation of AF. The outcomes of these studies will allow determining the efficacy of this early therapeutic intervention, and help deciding the role of anticoagulation in patients with A-IAB and no demonstrated AF., Competing Interests: Conflictos de interés: Los autores declaran no tener ningún conflicto de interés.

Neglected tropical diseases (NTD) are a group of diseases with high prevalence in tropical and subtropical countries. They are associated to poverty and underdevelopment. Due to its high morbimortality, these conditions are considered a health crisis. The impact of these diseases can be worsened by the poor socioeconomic status of the affected countries, most of them under-developed, which affects the health care provided to patients. The morbidity of these diseases is explained by the wide organic impairment that they produce. The cardiovascular system is particularly affected, which explains the high morbimortality of NTD. In this article, we review the key issues of a project elaborated by Emerging Leaders of the Interamerican Society of Cardiology (SIAC), about the cardiovascular impact of NTD: the NET-Heart Project (Neglected Tropical Diseases and other Infectious Diseases affecting the Heart).