Occupational burnout is particularly common among nurses due to their work being associated with stress, showing understanding, compassion, and commitment, along with the simultaneous need to maintain the necessary emotional distance. The aim of this review was to assess the occurrence and characterization of burnout among nurses working within neurology, geriatric care, intensive care units and with patients infected with the novel COVID-19 virus. PRISMA guidelines were used to conduct the review. The search for literature was limited to articles meeting the inclusion criteria and published from 2017 to 2022 in PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, Google Scholar, and Wiley. A total of 768 articles from this category have been found. Ultimately, after in-depth analysis, 20 articles were included in the study. The group of respondents ranged from 49 to 3100 participants. According to the data, the percentages of nurses suffering from burnout in the presented research ranged from 14.3% to 84.7%, with the highest value of burnout among nurses who worked in the ICU during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are certain factors among nurses that significantly affect the occurrence of burnout. These include, among others, working time, age, exposure to infection and contact with infected patients, lack of training on COVID-19 prevention, providing care to an increased number of COVID-19 patients per shift, lack of personal protective equipment, lack of support of administration, lack of pay satisfaction, intrinsic motivation and turnover intention.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is believed to have caused a sharp increase in the incidence of elder abuse (EA), including as a result of isolation, social distance combined with increased interpersonal stressors. Thus, the aim of this study is to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the elder abuse rates and the characteristics of risk factors. A total of 347 patients hospitalized in the Department of Neurology and Department of Geriatrics at University Hospital No. 1 in Bydgoszcz were selected as subjects for the analysis. The tools used in the study are: Authors-Designed Questionnaire, the Vulnerability to Abuse Screening Scale, the Geriatric Depression Scale and the Activities of Daily Living Scale. Descriptive statistics, chi-squared tests, Spearman’s rank correlation test, and logistic regression analyses were used. In the studied population, nearly 45% of the elderly were victims of violence. This represents an increase of more than 6 percent compared to the pre-pandemic. The most common type of EA was psychological abuse (72.3%). In the final models, the risk factors include, among others, low income (OR = 3.60, 95% CI = 1.93–6.72), chronic diseases (OR = 2.06, 95% CI = 1.28–3.31), poor relationship with the family (OR = 3.26, 95% CI = 1.96–5.43), and moderate and severe depression (OR = 18.29, 95% CI = 10.24–32.69; OR = 18.49, 95% CI = 3.91–87.30, respectively). Moreover, moderate functional impairment 5.52 times more often and severe functional impairment 21.07 times more likely to predispose to EA. People who suffered from COVID-19 are 1.59 times more likely to be victims of EA (95% CI = 1.03–2.46). In this study, we saw significant increases in EA rates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Quality of life is one of the parameters that characterize the success of brain tumor treatments, along with overall survival and a disease-free life. Thus, the main aim of this research was to evaluate the quality of life after the surgical treatment of brain tumors. The research material included 236 patients who were to undergo surgery for brain tumors. The participants completed the quality of life questionnaires EORTC QLQ-C30 (version 3.0) and EORTC QLQ-BN20 on the day of admission to the department, on the fifth day after the removal of the brain tumor, and thirty days after the surgical procedure. Descriptive statistics, Student’s t-test, the Kruskal–Wallis test, the Shapiro–Wolf test, ANOVA, and Fisher’s least significant difference post hoc test were performed. The mean score of the questionnaire before the surgical procedure amounted to 0.706, 5 days after surgery it amounted to 0.614, and 30 days after surgery to 0.707. The greatest reduction in the quality of life immediately after the procedure was observed in patients with low-grade glial tumors (WHO I, II) and extracerebral tumors (meningiomas and neuromas). Thirty days after surgery, an improvement in the quality of life was observed in all included groups. The greatest improvement was recorded in the group of patients operated on for meningioma and neuroblastoma, and the lowest in patients treated for metastatic tumors. Contemporary surgical procedures used in neurosurgery reduce the quality of life in patients with brain tumors only in the early postoperative period. Histopathological diagnoses of these tumors impact the quality of life of patients.

Elder abuse is internationally recognized as a growing problem of the 21st century that requires urgent intervention and action. This review aimed to synthesize evidence on the prevalence and risk factors of elder abuse between 2010 and 2022. A total of 2875 articles were identified through database searches, of which 28 met the inclusion criteria and were included in the final analysis (24 cross-sectional studies, 3 prospective studies, and 1 descriptive study). Reported prevalence rates of elder abuse ranged from 2.2% to 81.2% overall, while studies conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic reported rates ranging from 1.6% to 44.7%. Psychological abuse was the most frequently reported form of violence. The most commonly identified risk factors included low income, low educational level, gender, disability, depression, and—during the COVID-19 pandemic—social isolation. Across most studies, individuals with lower education and women were statistically more likely to experience abuse. The findings indicate substantial variability in the prevalence of elder abuse both before and during the pandemic, with consistently high rates observed. These results highlight the urgent need for improved screening, education, and targeted interventions by healthcare and social service professionals.