The COVID-19 pandemic has provoked generalized uncertainty around the world, with health workers experiencing anxiety, depression, burnout, insomnia, and stress. Although the effects of the pandemic on mental health may change as it evolves, the majority of reports have been web-based, cross-sectional studies. We performed a study assessing acute stress in frontline health workers during two consecutive epidemic waves. After screening for trait anxiety/depression and dissociative experiences, we evaluated changes in acute stress, considering resilience, state anxiety, burnout, depersonalization/derealization symptoms, and quality of sleep as cofactors. During the first epidemic wave (April 2020), health workers reported acute stress related to COVID-19, which was related to state anxiety. After the first epidemic wave, acute stress decreased, with no increase during the second epidemic wave (December 2020), and further decreased when vaccination started. During the follow-up (April 2020 to February 2021), the acute stress score was related to bad quality of sleep. However, acute stress, state anxiety, and burnout were all related to trait anxiety/depression, while the resilience score was invariant through time. Overall, the results emphasize the relevance of mental health screening before, during, and after an epidemic wave of infections, in order to enable coping during successive sanitary crises.

Objective: This was a pre-post study in a network of hospitals in Mexico-City, Mexico. Participants developed and implemented Quality Improvement (QI) interventions addressing perioperative pain management. Methods: PAIN OUT, an international QI and research network, provided tools for web-based auditing and feedback of pain management and patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in the clinical routine. Ward- and patient-level factors were evaluated with multi-level models. Change in proportion of patients reporting worst pain >= 6/10 between project phases was the primary outcome. Results: Participants created locally adapted resources for teaching and pain management, available to providers in the form of a website and a special issue of a national anesthesia journal. They offered teaching to anesthesiologists, surgeons, including residents, and nurses. Information was offered to patients and families. A total of 2658 patients were audited in 9 hospitals, between July 2016 and December 2018. Participants reported that the project made them aware of the importance of: training in pain management; auditing one's own patients to learn about PROs and that QI requires collaboration between multi-disciplinary teams. Participants reported being unaware that their patients experienced severe pain and lacked information about pain treatment options. Worst pain decreased significantly between the two project phases, as did PROs related to pain interfering with movement, taking a deep breath/ coughing or sleep. The opportunity of patients receiving information about their pain treatment options increased from 44% to 77%. Conclusions: Patients benefited from improved care and pain-related PROs. Clinicians appreciated gaining increased expertise in perioperative pain management and methods of QI.

In addition to the sanitary constrains implemented due to the pandemic, frontline physicians have faced increased workloads with insufficient resources, and the responsibility to make extraordinary clinical decisions. In 108 physicians who were at the forefront of care of patients with COVID-19 during the first two years of the pandemic, mental health, moral distress, and moral injury were assessed twice, in between two late waves of COVID-19 contagions, according to their adverse psychological reactions, in-hospital experience, sick leave due to COVID-19, quality of sleep, moral sensitivity, clinical empathy, resilience, and sense of coherence. Three months after the wave of contagions, the adverse emotional reactions and moral distress decreased, while moral injury persisted. Moral distress was related to clinical empathy, with influence from burnout and sick leave due to COVID-19, and moral injury was related to the sense of coherence, while recovery from moral distress was related to resilience. The results suggest that measures to prevent physician infection, as well as strengthening resilience and a sense of coherence, may be helpful to prevent persistent mental damage after exposure to a sanitary crisis.

RESUMEN. La ketamina es un medicamento conocido por sus bondades como inductor anestésico y para disminuir la posibilidad de complicaciones, por ejemplo, exacerbación del dolor neuropático e hiperalgesia asociada a opioides. En esta revisión nos enfocaremos en otras indicaciones en las que también ha demostrado ser útil y que, bajo observación e instrucción adecuadas en una infraestructura diseñada para ello (clínicas de ketamina), mejora la calidad en el comportamiento y disminuye el estrés, ansiedad y dolor. Entre las indicaciones para su uso se encuentran los trastornos depresivos, el trastorno de ansiedad, el trastorno obsesivo compulsivo y los relacionados con traumas emocionales; el trastorno bipolar, anormalidades en conducta e ingesta alimentaria, al igual que los trastornos adictivos. Ketamine is a drug known for its benefits as an anesthetic inducer and to reduce the possibility of complications such as exacerbation of neuropathic pain and hyperalgesia associated with opioids. In this review we will focus on other indications in which it has also proven to be useful and that, under adequate observation and instruction in an infrastructure designed for it (ketamine clinics), improves the quality of behavior and decreases stress, anxiety and pain. Among the indications for its use are depressive disorders, anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and those related to emotional trauma; bipolar disorder, abnormalities in behavior and eating intake as well as addictive disorders.

ABASI (Aprendizaje Basado en Simulación):