Background: Valvular heart diseases are diseases that affect the valves by altering the normal circulation of blood within the heart. In recent years, the use of valvuloplasty has become recurrent due to the increase in calcific valve disease, which usually occurs in the elderly, and mitral valve regurgitation. For this reason, it is critical to be able to best manage the patient undergoing this surgery. To accomplish this, the length of stay (LOS) is used as a quality indicator. Methods: A multiple linear regression model and four other regression algorithms were used to study the total LOS function of a set of independent variables related to the clinical and demographic characteristics of patients. The study was conducted at the University Hospital “San Giovanni di Dio e Ruggi d’Aragona” of Salerno (Italy) in the years 2010–2020. Results: Overall, the MLR model proved to be the best, with an R² value of 0.720. Among the independent variables, age, pre-operative LOS, congestive heart failure, and peripheral vascular disease were those that mainly influenced the output value. Conclusions: LOS proves, once again, to be a strategic indicator for hospital resource management, and simple linear regression models have shown excellent results to analyze it.

Mental alterations were described during the COVID-19 pandemic and sleep deprivation has been reported as a consequence of social isolation. In Italy, the COVID-19 pandemic spread out at the beginning of 2020 determining severe lockdown periods. The aim of our study was to observe the effects of lockdown on sleep and anxiety in trained non-professional subjects and professional athletes who continued to train during the lockdown period. Forty-six subjects (21 trained non-professional subjects and 25 professional athletes) were recruited from a variety of team and individual sports to complete a battery of previously validated and widely used questionnaires assessing psychometric and anthropometric parameters, physical activity levels, lifestyle habits, and sleep quality. Subjects were aged 27.0 ± 5.14. All items were evaluated as percentages and chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests were performed, as appropriate. Our data showed that the prevalence of the difficulty of falling asleep (over 30%), the tendency of nocturnal awakenings (over 30%), and moderate anxiety (over 38%) were at the same extent in the two groups. Of the professional athletes, 72.73% declared snoring during sleep vs 42.86% of non-professional subjects. No other significant differences were found between the two groups except for the perception of being constant in daily activity, significantly more reported by trained subjects (p < 0.005). Our data show a similar scenario of anxiety and sleep disturbances for the two groups, suggesting that lockdown by the COVID-19 pandemic has partially mitigated the known beneficial effects due to physical activity on mental health and sleep quality. Further analyses are necessary to define the associated risk factors.

CoViD-19 caused a significant alteration of the normal activity of hospital facilities. In particular, the surgical departments have been converted and reprogrammed to cope with the emergency, giving priority to urgent procedures that cannot be deferred. To this must be added the actions implemented by governments, such as the lockdown, which forced people to stay in their homes. In this study it was analyzed how the pandemic and the actions taken to counter the spread of the infection have influenced the activity of the Department of Emergency Surgery of "San Giovanni di Dio and Ruggi d'Aragona" University Hospital in Salerno (Italy). Logistic regression and statistical analysis were used to compare the pre-pandemic data (year 2019) with that recorded at the height of the pandemic (year 2020). The results show that Diagnostic Related Group (DRG) weight and urgent hospitalization increased significantly in 2020.

CoViD-19 has placed the health systems of many countries in further crisis. The elective surgeries were canceled and the staff of several departments, including general medicine, underwent a reallocation to deal with the health emergency. In a context of economic fragility, in recent years the use of indicators for measuring health quality and performance has acquired more and more importance. Access limited only to emergency-urgency cases within hospitals has however produced a benefit in improving the appropriateness of admissions. In this study the value of parameter sets obtained in year 2019 (pre-pandemic) and year 2020 (during the pandemic), including Length of Stay and Diagnostic Related Group (DRG) Weight, of the Department of General Medicine of the University Hospital of Salerno 'San Giovanni di Dio e Ruggi D'Aragona' in Salerno (Italy) were compared using statistical analysis and logistic regression. The statistical analysis shows an increase in the DRG Weight in 2020, so an increase of the complexity of the cases treated and a greater appropriateness of hospitalizations.