Aims To describe the level of work engagement of active health care professionals during the COVID‐19 pandemic, and its relationship with psychological distress according to the professional category. Background Health care professionals working on the front line of the COVID‐19 pandemic are at risk of psychological distress, and work engagement could be a positive attitude that could serve as a protective factor. Methods Cross‐sectional observational study of 1,459 health care professionals. Psychological distress was measured with the General Health Questionnaire and work engagement with the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. Data were analysed with bivariate analyses and correlations. Results Psychological distress was reported by 80.6% of health care professionals. Work engagement as high with a total mean score of 5.04 (SD = 1.14). The results showed that distressed professionals showed significantly lower levels of work engagement. Conclusions The present study identified psychological distress and work engagement experienced by health care professionals during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Most of the variables included in the study revealed a significant relationship with psychological distress and work engagement. Implications for Nursing Management The relationship between the working conditions with psychological distress and work engagement suggests that improvements in the workplace are needed to promote protective measure for the mental health of health care professionals.

Background and objectives: Chemotherapy does not only affect cancer cells; it also affects, to a greater or lesser degree, all other cells in the body. This toxicity should be assessed according to its severity, frequency, and duration, taking into account objective and subjective dimensions in its assessment. This assessment is a highly relevant aspect when providing care to chemotherapy patients, mainly due to the impact of the treatment on the patient's quality of life, as well as the vital risk it may imply under certain circumstances. For all this, the objective of this study was to assess the relationship between chemotherapy-associated adverse reactions and health-related quality of life in breast cancer patients. Materials and methods: With this purpose, a descriptive cross-sectional study was developed on 110 breast cancer patients who were treated with docetaxel, epirubicin, and cyclophosphamide. Results: It is worth highlighting the negative effect of nausea, dysgeusia, peripheral neuropathy, loss of appetite, myalgia, and peripheral edema on the quality of life. Likewise, it is worth mentioning peripheral neuropathy as the toxicity that affects a greater number of quality-of-life indicators. Conclusions: To sum up, it would be necessary to make health professionals aware of the importance of chemotherapy-associated adverse reactions.

The aim of this study was to compare the performance of the automatic TEST 1 ESR system, SIRE Analytical Systems (TEST 1), with that of the the Sedisystem 15, Becton Dickinson (SEDI), and the International Council for Standardization in Haematology reference method (Westergren) for measuring the length of sedimentation reaction in blood (LSRB). This reaction was measured in 418 paired blood samples drawn in K2-EDTA vacuum tubes and specific tubes from patients scheduled for routine LSRB measurement. The TEST 1 system uses micro-sedimentation and quantitative capillary photometry technology, whereas the SEDI uses a CCD camera. For Westergren, a 200 mm column with 3.0 mm internal diameter was used. Compared to Westergren, TEST 1 gives accurate values of LSRB in most of the samples (mean of differences: 0.99 +/- 10.4 mm; 95% CI, -0.807 to 2.78 mm; n =131). Similar results were obtained in the comparison with SEDI (mean of differences: -0.626 +/- 8 mm; 95% CI, -1.756 to 0.5 mm; n = 195). Compared to those of fresh blood samples, LSRB values were significantly lower in 24 h stored samples, either at 4 degrees C (21.5 +/- 2.3 vs. 19.4 +/- 2.2 mm; p (Spearman's coefficient of correlation): 0.981; n = 44) or at room temperature (19.1 +/- 2.5 vs. 16.2 +/- 2.1 mm; p: 0.903; n = 46). In conclusion, TEST 1 is a rapid, reliable system for automatic measurement of LSRB in standard K2-EDTA blood samples. It has a very low imprecision and maintains a good performance in 24 h stored samples. In addition, due to its operational characteristics (60 samples/20 min) it is a suitable tool for clinical laboratories with a high work load as well as for emergency laboratories.