Risky sexual behaviors, such as not using a condom for preventing sexually transmittable diseases and unwanted pregnancies, are associated with emotional and psychological problems in adolescence, including higher levels of depression, anxiety, stress, and low self-esteem. Adolescents with a history of violence victimization are also at increased risk of engaging in sexual risk behaviors. In this study, we examined the associations between mental health disturbances and partner violence victimization and the non-use of condoms among young people in Spain. We also examined self-esteem as a mediator of mental health problems and unprotected sexual relationships. A cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 831 adolescents randomly selected from 25 high schools in Spain. From the initial sample, 285 students (144 men and 141 women) from high schools in Alicante (Spain) who reported having experienced sexual activity with at least one partner were approached. The results showed that one in three adolescents between 14 and 19 years old did not use condoms during sexual intercourse. The factors associated with the non-use of condoms in the estimated models of Poisson robust variance were having a history of physical, psychological, or sexual violence; having been expelled from school because of behavioral problems; and having higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress and lower levels of self-esteem. Self-esteem was independently associated with the non-use of condoms. Having lower levels of self-esteem increased the risk of not using a condom during participants’ last sexual intercourse. These findings suggest the importance of developing public health strategies for mental health promotion to increase condom use among adolescents.

The presence of neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) against SARS-CoV-2 represent a surrogate marker of immunologic protection in populations at high risk of infection such as healthcare workers caring for hospitalized patients with COVID-19. As recommended by CDC and the European CDC, the use of rapid diagnostic tests during population-based evaluations offers an opportunity to identify individuals with serologic evidence of natural infection or who have undergone vaccination. We carried out a cross-sectional study to assess the presence of neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 among medical providers at an intensive care unit of a large referral hospital in Alicante, Spain. In addition, we tested for the presence of neutralizing antibodies compared to serum of uninfected individuals from a Biobank. We were also interested in evaluating the use of a rapid lateral flow immunochromatography (LFIC) test against a surrogate ELISA viral neutralization test (sVNT). This rapid test demonstrated a specificity of 1.000 95% CI (0.91–1.00) and the sensitivity of 0.987 95% CI (0.93–1.00). The negative predictive value was 95%. After six months, this rapid test demonstrated that those immunized with two doses of BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, maintained optimal levels of neutralizing antibodies. We concluded that all Health Care Workers develop NAbs and the use of this rapid immunochromatographic test represents a potential tool to be used in population-based studies to detect serological antibody responses to vaccination. Vaccination policies could benefit from this tool to assess additional doses of vaccine or boosters among high-risk populations.

Healthcare professionals must play an exemplary role in the field of vaccinology. It is convenient that they are trained during their time at university. The objective of this study was to determine the acceptability of the vaccines against COVID-19 in health sciences students in Spanish universities. A cross-sectional study was performed regarding the acceptance of the vaccines against COVID-19 in students in the Health Sciences Degrees in Spanish universities was performed on a sample of students of nursing, medicine, and pharmacy during the spring of 2021, via an online questionnaire with 36 questions designed ad hoc, self-administered, anonymized, and standardized. There were 1222 students participating, of Spanish nationality (97.4%), women (80.5%) and with an average age of 22.0 ± 4.8 years old. Of those, 12.3% had had the disease, 44.0% had to quarantine, 70.8% had undergone diagnostic tests, out of which 14.1% were positive. In total, 97.5% of those surveyed indicated their desire of being vaccinated, if possible, with Comirnaty^® (74.9%). At the time of the study, 49.6% were already vaccinated. The reasons for vaccination differed according to the degree and the doubts about vaccine safety was the largest reason for reluctance. Some 37.7% suspected that there are unknown adverse effects and 85.6% of those vaccinated experienced some mild effects after injection. Vaccine acceptance and confidence in the recommendations given by health authorities is high in health sciences students.

El Position on Nursing Diagnosis (PND) es una escala que utiliza la técnica del diferencial semántico para medir las actitudes hacia el concepto diagnóstico enfermero. El estudio objetivó desarrollar una forma abreviada de la versión española de esta escala, evaluar sus propiedades psicométricas y eficiencia. Se utilizó un doble enfoque empírico-teórico para obtener una forma reducida del PND, el PND-7-SV, que fuera equivalente a la original. Mediante un diseño transversal a través de encuesta, se evaluó la fiabilidad (consistencia interna y fiabilidad test-retest), validez de constructo (análisis factorial exploratorio, técnica de grupos conocidos y validez discriminante) y de criterio (validez concurrente), sensibilidad al cambio y eficiencia del PND-7-SV en una muestra de 476 estudiantes de enfermería españoles. Los resultados avalaron la utilidad del PND-7-SV para medir las actitudes hacia el diagnóstico enfermero de manera equivalente a la forma completa de la escala y en un tiempo más reducido.