Broad-spectrum empirical antimicrobials are frequently prescribed for patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) despite the lack of evidence for bacterial coinfection. We aimed to cross-sectionally determine the frequency of antibiotics use, type of antibiotics prescribed, and the factors influencing antibiotics use in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 confirmed by polymerase chain reaction. The study was a national, multicenter, retrospective, and single-day point prevalence study. This was a national, multicenter, retrospective, and single-day point-prevalence study, conducted in the 24-h period between 00:00 and 24:00 on November 18, 2020, during the start of the second COVID-19 peak in Turkey. A total of 1500 patients hospitalized with a diagnosis of COVID-19 were included in the study. The mean age ± standard deviation of the patients was 65.0 ± 15.5, and 56.2% (n = 843) of these patients were men. Of these hospitalized patients, 11.9% (n = 178) were undergoing invasive mechanical ventilation or ECMO. It was observed that 1118 (74.5%) patients were receiving antibiotics, of which 416 (37.2%) were prescribed a combination of antibiotics. In total, 71.2% of the patients had neither a clinical diagnosis nor microbiological evidence for prescribing antibiotics. In the multivariate logistic regression analysis, hospitalization in a state hospital (p < 0.001), requiring any supplemental oxygen (p = 0.005), presence of moderate/diffuse lung involvement (p < 0.001), C-reactive protein > 10 ULT coefficient (p < 0.001), lymphocyte count < 800 (p = 0.007), and clinical diagnosis and/or confirmation by culture (p < 0.001) were found to be independent factors associated with increased antibiotic use. The necessity of empirical antibiotics use in patients with COVID-19 should be reconsidered according to their clinical, imaging, and laboratory findings.

Background/aim: To have country-wide information about multidrug resistance (MDR) in isolates from community-acquired urinary tract infections (CAUTI) of Turkey, in terms of resistance rates and useful options. Materials and methods: We used a geocode standard, nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS), and a total of 1588 community-acquired isolates of 20 centres from 12 different NUTS regions between March 2019 and March 2020 were analysed. Results: Of the 1588 culture growths, 1269 (79. 9%) were Escherichia coli and 152 (9.6%) were Klebsiella spp. Male sex, advanced age, and having two or more risk factors showed a statistically significant relation with MDR existence (p < 0.001, p: 0.014, p < 0.001, respectively) that increasing number of risk factors or degree of advancing in age directly affects the number of antibiotic groups detected to have resistance by pathogens. In total, MDR isolates corresponded to 36.1% of our CAUTI samples; MDR existence was 35.7% in E. coli isolates and 57.2% in Klebsiella spp. isolates. Our results did not show an association between resistance or MDR occurrence rates and NUTS regions. Conclusion: The necessity of urine culture in outpatient clinics should be taken into consideration, at least after evaluating risk factors for antibacterial resistance individually. Community-acquired UTIs should be followed up time- and region-dependently. Antibiotic stewardship programmes should be more widely and effectively administrated.

Introduction Psychiatric problems, such as stress and anxiety disorders, are encountered amongst healthcare professionals fighting epidemics. Considering that COVID‐19 suddenly became a pandemic and healthcare professionals have not had access to sufficient information, it is a fact that healthcare professionals have been affected on a large scale. Heavy workloads, insufficient equipment and anxiety over families increase this impact. We aimed to investigate the extent to which healthcare professionals have been psychologically affected by COVID‐19 and related factors. Methodology Data obtained through questionnaires completed by 348 healthcare professionals working during the COVID‐19 pandemic and 350 participants who are in the control group were investigated. The Impact of Event Scale‐revised (IES‐R) for post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the Severity Index (ISI) for insomnia were used. Differences regarding gender, occupation, age group, marital status and sub‐groups were statistically analysed. Results Of the 348 healthcare professionals, 176 (50.6%) were women and 172 (49.4%) men, while 190 (54.6%) were doctors and 158 (45.4%) nurses. The incidence of PTSD was statistically significantly higher in the healthcare professionals group than in the control group (P < .001). The incidence of PTSD was statistically significantly higher amongst nurses (P = .001), women (P = .002) and those who were married (P = .007). Both PTSD and insomnia were found to be statistically significantly higher amongst those working in the “area of final diagnosis” (P = .016 and P = .002, respectively). Conclusions The determination of the groups most affected amongst professionals working in epidemics is important for the planning of in‐service training and psychological support studies. If the fight against pandemics includes health teams with strong psychological grounding, it leads to qualified medical care for patients.

The demographic shift with an aging population worldwide has highlighted the unique healthcare challenges the elderly face. According to the Turkish Statistical Institute data, the population aged 65 and over reached 8,722,806 in 2023, accounting for 10.2% of the total population. Population projections indicate that the proportion of the elderly population is expected to reach 12.9% in 2030

Differentiating tuberculous spondylodiscitis (TS) from pyogenic spondylodiscitis (PS) is challenging due to overlapping clinical and radiological features.

Aim: In the study, it was aimed to investigate the relationship between inflammatory markers and radiology in COVID-19 patients. Material and Method: The study was conducted in the quarantine wards of a tertiary hospital between March and June 2020. Patients with a definite diagnosis of COVID-19 were included in the study. The lung damage of the patients caused by COVID-19 was determined by computed tomography and the relationship between lung damage and inflammatory markers was examined. Results: The mean age of 259 COVID-19 patients included in the study was 61.96 ± 14.076. Except for thrombocytopenia, all variables such as ferritin, D-dimer, thoracic computerized tomography (CT) involvement rates were significantly poorer in the patients requiring the care in ICU than the patients in wards (p