OBJECTIVES: Although vaccination has started, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses a continuing threat to public health. Therefore, in addition to vaccination, the use of supplements to support the immune system may be important. The purpose of this study was to synthesize evidence on the possible effect of low serum vitamin D levels (25[OH]D<20 ng/mL or 50 nmol/L) on COVID-19 infection and outcomes.METHODS: We searched Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and ScienceDirect without any language restrictions for articles published between January 1 and December 15, 2020. We performed 3 meta-analyses (called vitamin D and COVID-19 infection meta-analysis [D-CIMA], vitamin D and COVID-19 severity meta-analysis [D-CSMA], and vitamin D and COV ID-19 mortality meta-analysis [D-CMMA] for COVID-19 infection, severity, and mortality, respectively) to combine odds ratio values according to laboratory measurement units for vitamin D and the measured serum 25(OH)D level.RESULTS: Twenty-one eligible studies were found to be relevant to the relationship between vitamin D and COVID-19 infection/outcomes (n=205,869). The D-CIMA meta-analysis showed that individuals with low serum vitamin D levels were 1.64 times (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.32 to 2.04; p<0.001) more likely to contract COVID-19. The D-CSMA meta-analysis showed that people with serum 25(OH)D levels below 20 ng/mL or 50 nmol/L were 2.42 times (95% CI, 1.13 to 5.18; p=0.022) more likely to have severe COVID-19. The D-CMMA meta-analysis showed that low vitamin D levels had no effect on COVID-19 mortality (OR, 1.64; 95% CI, 0.53 to 5.06, p=0.390).CONCLUSIONS: According to our results, vitamin D deficiency may increase the risk of COVID-19 infection and the likelihood of severe disease. Therefore, we recommend vitamin D supplementation to prevent COVID-19 and its negative outcomes.

Introduction: The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitude, and behavior of medical students about the COVID-19 and the effect of the outbreak on the students' anxiety levels.Methods: The cross-sectional study was carried out between 07-14 April, with the online questionnaire forms applied to the medical students. A questionnaire forms were sent to one of every two students in the faculty using the systematic sampling method. A total of 530 volunteers were included in the study. The data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire of the socio-demographic characteristics, opinions about the epidemic, knowledge, and attitude of medical students regarding COVID-19. Anxiety levels of the participants were measured with the State-Trait anxiety inventory.Results: A total of 530 medical students had a mean score of knowledge and attitude of 7.83±1.27 and 45.18±5.12, respectively. Participants demonstrated good knowledge and a positive attitude towards COVID-19. Clinical period students had a higher level of knowledge (p<0.001) and positive attitude (p=0.025) compared to preclinical students. While the knowledge score was higher in men (p = 0.033), the attitude score was higher in women (p <0.001). There was a negative correlation between attitude scores and state (p=0.003) and trait anxiety scores (p<0.001).Conclusion: Medical students had sufficient knowledge and attitude towards COVID-19. Anxiety caused by the outbreak may have negative effects on the positive attitudes of the participants.

Aim: It is known that increasing health literacy can increase people's quality of life, enable them to benefit from health services more effectively and contribute to reducing health care costs. Inadequate health literacy has been reported to lead to insufficient health information, high risk of ill health, low level of understanding of treatment methods and increase in health care costs. Today, increasing number of chronic diseases, increasing the elderly population and increasing the budget allocated to health services have also increased the importance of health literacy levels. In this context, it is aimed to investigate health literacy levels and factors affecting our country. Methods: Our cross-sectional study was conducted in voluntary patients who applied to the family medicine outpatient clinic of a university. In our study, sociodemographic questionnaire form and Turkish Health Literacy Scale were used for data collection. Chi-square test was used for statistical analysis and p Results: 225 volunteers were included in our study. 62,1% of them were women. The mean score of the health literacy scale was 25.5±10.2. 50.6% of the participants were inadequate, and 25.1% of them had problematic health literacy level. The level of health literacy was found to be significantly lower in women, who had low education level, who were married and had children and who had vision problems. Conclusion: The data obtained from our study showed that our health literacy levels are low. We need to develop policies that increase our levels

Background: Dental anxiety and fear make the dental operation and the treatment difficult. Beside that it causes the delays or absence in the dental appointments so it leads to problems for oral and dental health. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of dental anxiety, the factors affecting dental anxiety and the effects of dental anxiety on oral dental health of the participants. Methodology: We conducted a hospital-based, cross-sectional study among 342 patients attending the outpatient clinic of a tertiary dentistry hospital. Dental anxiety and trait anxiety levels of the participants measured using MDAS and STAI scales. We conducted the student t-test, One-way Anova and Tukey's post hoc for the analysis of our data. The Pearson's correlation analysis has been used for the analysis of two different quantitative data obtain from MDAS and STAI scales. Results: The age average of 342 participant of our research was 34,41 +/- 11,78. 59,1% of our participants was women. (n=202) Dental anxiety was existing in the 42,1% of the participants (n=144). 56,4% of the participants have had a hard and painful dental treatment experiences. 15,2% of our participants (n=52) had MDAS 19 point or more. Conclusions: High and statistically significant dental anxiety scores have been detected for the patients who are women, housewives, who had uneasy and painful dental treatment stories, who have personel inclinations to the anxiety. Examinations directed to the factors which would increase the dental anxiety, may prevent possible complications and also the risk carried by the patients related to the dental health may be estimated with the help of this kind of examinations.

Background and objective: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) causes severe anxiety in some patients. Anxiety during MRI leads to prolongation of the procedure and deterioration of image quality, resulting in loss of labor and cost increase. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of written and visual information on state anxiety in patients undergoing MRI. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional prospective study was conducted with 294 participants. The study was carried out between January 2019 and March 2019 at the Radiology Clinic of the tertiary university hospital. The participants were divided into 3 groups as group 1 (control group), group 2 (written information) and group 3 (visual information). The trait anxiety and state anxiety of the participants were measured by State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) inventory, which can measure both anxiety status. Results: There was no statistically significant difference between demographic characteristics and trait anxiety scores (p = 0.20) of all three groups. The state anxiety scores of group 3 were statistically lower than the group 2 (p < 0.001) and control group (p < 0.001). The state anxiety scores of group 2 were statistically lower than control group (p < 0.001). Conclusion: MRI anxiety can be reduced by visual and written information. Visual information may be more effective in reducing MRI anxiety than written information.

Objective: Influenza vaccine reduces the burden of seasonal influenza and related complications. Potential vaccination barriers need to be identified to raise awareness and increase acceptance. We aimed to investigate the rates of seasonal influenza vaccination and the knowledge, opinions, and behaviours prevalent in Turkish society. Methods: The study among seven regions in Turkey was conducted from October-November 2018 in 28 family health centres, using a cross-sectional, descriptive design. The knowledge, opinions, and behaviours of participants regarding the influenza vaccine were obtained by family physicians through face-to-face interviews with participants. Results: A total of 3,492 people aged 10-97 years age range (median: 50 years) were included in the study. Over half of the participants (59.9%, n = 2093) were female. It was found that the percentage of participants who never received the influenza vaccine was 78.4%; only 13.4% were occasionally vaccinated, and 8.1% received regular annual vaccination. Influenza vaccination rates were higher in married people (p < 0.001), women (p = 0.005), patients with chronic lung and cardiovascular disease (p < 0.001), those over 65 years /nursing home residents (p < 0.001). Awareness of the vaccine’s benefit was higher in the group at high risk of influenza (p < 0.001). Conclusion: The rate of regular vaccination against influenza every year was insufficient, at 8.1%. Individuals’ insensitivity, insufficient knowledge, and attitudes toward influenza vaccination is a serious health problem for Turkish society. Barriers to influenza vaccination can be reduced by good communication between family physicians and their patients. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.38.4.4915 How to cite this:Goktas O, Can FE, Yakar B, Ercan I, Akalin EH. Seasonal influenza vaccine awareness and factors affecting vaccination in Turkish Society. Pak J Med Sci. 2022;38(4):893-899. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.38.4.4915 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.