Nuevo coronavirus (COVID-19). Un análisis bibliométrico

Acinetobacter baumannii, a Multidrug-Resistant Opportunistic Pathogen in New Habitats: A Systematic Review

In recent years, humanity has begun to face a growing challenge posed by a rise in the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This has resulted in an alarming surge in fatalities and the emergence of increasingly hard-to-manage diseases. Acinetobacter baumannii can be seen as one of these resilient pathogens due to its increasing prevalence in hospitals, its resistance to treatment, and its association with elevated mortality rates. Despite its clinical significance, the scientific understanding of this pathogen in non-hospital settings remains limited. Knowledge of its virulence factors is also lacking. Therefore, in this review, we seek to shed light on the latest research regarding the ecological niches, microbiological traits, and antibiotic resistance profiles of Acinetobacter baumannii. Recent studies have revealed the presence of this bacterium in a growing range of environmental niches, including rivers, treatment plants, and soils. It has also been discovered in diverse food sources such as meat and vegetables, as well as in farm animals and household pets such as dogs and cats. This broader presence of Acinetobacter baumannii, i.e., outside of hospital environments, indicates a significant risk of environmental contamination. As a result, greater levels of awareness and new preventive measures should be promoted to address this potential threat to public health.

Is the meaning of subjective well-being similar in Latin American countries? A cross-cultural measurement invariance study of the WHO-5 well-being index during the COVID-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND

There is an urgent need to assess changes in well-being on a multinational scale during the COVID-19 pandemic, thus culturally valid scales must be available.

METHODS

With this in mind, this study examined the invariance of the WHO well-being index (WHO-5) among a sample of 5183 people from 12 Latin Americans countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay).

RESULTS

The results of the present study indicate that the WHO-5 is strictly invariant across samples from different Latin American countries. Furthermore, the results of the IRT analysis indicate that all items of the WHO-5 were highly discriminative and that the difficulty required to respond to each of the five items is ascending. Additionally, the results indicated the presence of moderate and small size differences in subjective well-being among most countries.

CONCLUSION

The WHO-5 is useful for assessing subjective well-being in 12 Latin American countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, since the differences between scores can be attributed to differences in well-being and not in other characteristics of the scale.

Network analysis of the relationships between conspiracy beliefs towards COVID-19 vaccine and symptoms of fear of COVID-19 in a sample of latin american countries

The present study examined how conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines specifically relate to symptoms of fear of COVID-19 in a sample of four South American countries. A total of 1785 people from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru participated, responding to a sociodemographic survey, the Fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19 S) and the Vaccine Conspiracy Beliefs Scale-COVID-19 (VCBS-COVID-19). Network analysis identified the most important symptoms of fear and conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines (nodes) and the associations between them (edges). In addition, the robustness of the network of these indicators of centrality and the possible differences in the structure and connectivity of the networks between the four countries were evaluated. The results suggest that the nodes with the highest centrality were items 2 and 5 of the FCV-19 S and item 2 of the VCBS-COVID-19. Likewise, item 6 is the belief that most predicts conspiracy beliefs about vaccines against COVID-19; while item 6 was the symptom that most predicts fear of COVID-19. The findings strongly support cross-cultural similarities in the networks across the four countries rather than differences. Although it was expected that a higher presence of symptoms of fear of COVID-19 may lead people to compensate for their fear by believing in conspiratorial ideas about vaccines and, consequently, rejecting the COVID-19 vaccine, the results do not clearly show this relationship. This could lead other researchers to generate evidence to explain the differences between Latin American countries and countries in other contexts in terms of vaccination rates. This evidence could be useful to develop policies favoring vaccination against COVID-19 that are more contextualized to the Latin American region, characterized by social instability and economic recession during the pandemic.

Psychological Distress, Anxiety, and Academic Self-Efficacy as Predictors of Study Satisfaction Among Peruvian University Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The objective of this research study was to determine if psychological distress, anxiety, and academic self-efficacy predict satisfaction with studies in Peruvian university students during the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional and predictive design was used, in which 582 Peruvian university students participated, 243 men and 339 women, between the ages of 16 and 41. Student's t-statistics were used to analyze the differences in scores of psychological distress, anxiety, academic self-efficacy, and satisfaction with studies based on the sex of the participants, Pearson's R was used for the analysis of correlations between variables, and multiple linear regressions were used to evaluate the predictive model. In the analyses, the significance level was set at 0.05. The results show that men have higher levels of psychological distress, anxiety, and academic self-efficacy than women do (p < 0.01); high levels of psychological distress correlate with high levels of anxiety (r = 0.580, p < 0.01) and low levels of satisfaction with studies (r = -0.178, p < 0.01) and academic self-efficacy (r = -0.348, p < 0.01); high levels of anxiety correlate with low levels of satisfaction with studies (r = -0.122, p < 0.01) and academic self-efficacy (r = -0.192, p < 0.01); and high levels of academic self-efficacy correlate with high levels of satisfaction with studies (r = 0.429, p < 0.01). Academic self-efficacy was also found to predict satisfaction with studies (β = 0.429, p < 0.01). This concludes that, although there are significant correlations between psychological distress, anxiety, academic self-efficacy, and satisfaction with studies, academic self-efficacy is the variable that most predicts satisfaction with studies in Peruvian university students.

Contribution of Deep-Learning Techniques Toward Fighting COVID-19: A Bibliometric Analysis of Scholarly Production During 2020

COVID-19 has dramatically affected various aspects of human society with worldwide repercussions. Firstly, a serious public health issue has been generated, resulting in millions of deaths. Also, the global economy, social coexistence, psychological status, mental health, and the human-environment relationship/dynamics have been seriously affected. Indeed, abrupt changes in our daily lives have been enforced, starting with a mandatory quarantine and the application of biosafety measures. Due to the magnitude of these effects, research efforts from different fields were rapidly concentrated around the current pandemic to mitigate its impact. Among these fields, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning (DL) have supported many research papers to help combat COVID-19. The present work addresses a bibliometric analysis of this scholarly production during 2020. Specifically, we analyse quantitative and qualitative indicators that give us insights into the factors that have allowed papers to reach a significant impact on traditional metrics and alternative ones registered in social networks, digital mainstream media, and public policy documents. In this regard, we study the correlations between these different metrics and attributes. Finally, we analyze how the last DL advances have been exploited in the context of the COVID-19 situation.

Visibility, collaboration and impact of the Cuban scientific output on COVID-19 in Scopus

INTRODUCTION

COVID-19 is a disease with worldwide impact that has fully caught attention of researchers. The Cuban scientific output, after one year of confronting this pandemic, has not been studied from a bibliometric perspective.

OBJECTIVE

To characterize the output of original scientific articles and review articles on COVID-19 published by Cuban authors in the journals included in the Scopus bibliographic database, the collaborations in these publications and their impact, according to the citation of the research in the world literature.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A cross-sectional, descriptive and observational study was performed, using a bibliometric approach. A search strategy was used to retrieve articles on the subject and bibliometric indicators of output, visibility, leadership, collaboration and impact were studied.

RESULTS

Cuba contributed 2.5% of the Latin American output and 0.2% of the world output. Of the national scientific output (133 articles, 111 original and 22 reviews), 84.2% were authored by a Cuban corresponding author (Cuban leadership). However, the majority (n = 20; 71.4%) of articles with international collaboration (n = 28; 21.1%) had foreign corresponding authors. Of the total, 33.8% (n = 45) corresponded to articles without collaboration. Only 13.5% of the articles (n = 18) were published in journals with high visibility (Q1). Of all the output, 68.4% (n = 91) was in Cuban journals. The output in English represented 29.3% (n = 39) and achieved greater impact than the articles in Spanish in terms of citations. As the visibility of the journals increased according to the quartiles where they are, the percentage of articles published in English and cited articles increased too, but Cuban scientific leadership decreased.

CONCLUSIONS

The greater the leadership in Cuban research, the lower its impact, and the lower the indexes of international collaboration. Cuban researchers are not yet able to systematically generate research that has a significant impact on the international scientific community.

Assessment of Fear of COVID-19 in Older Adults: Validation of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale

There is no information in Peru on the prevalence of mental health problems associated with COVID-19 in older adults. In this sense, the aim of the study was to gather evidence on the factor structure, criterion-related validity, and reliability of the Spanish version of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) in this population. The participants were 400 older adults (mean age = 68.04, SD = 6.41), who were administered the Fear of COVID-19 Scale, Revised Mental Health Inventory-5, Patient Health Questionnaire-2 items, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale 2 items. Structural equation models were estimated, specifically confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), bifactor CFA, and structural models with latent variables (SEM). Internal consistency was estimated with composite reliability indexes (CRI) and omega coefficients. A bifactor model with both a general factor underlying all items plus a specific factor underlying items 1, 2, 4, and 5 representing the emotional response to COVID better represents the factor structure of the scale. This structure had adequate fit and good reliability, and additionally fear of COVID had a large effect on mental health. In general, women had more fear than men, having more information on COVID was associated to more fear, while having family or friends affected by COVID did not related to fear of the virus. The Spanish version of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale presents evidence of validity and reliability to assess fear of COVID-19 in the Peruvian older adult population.

Systematic review of bibliometric studies on SARS-CoV-2

Objective: To perform a systematic review of articles that evaluated the scientific production on SARS-CoV-2 through bibliometric analyzes. Methods: Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar databases were used. After applying the pre-established inclusion criteria, 30 articles were included. Results. The total number of articles found in the bibliometric studies on SARS-CoV-2 varied widely from 153 to 21,395 articles and an average equal to 4,279 (± 5,510). A total of 17 countries published within the scope of this study, but only six published more than one article, emphasizing authors from Chinese institutions (17%). Scopus was the most used database in bibliometric studies (50%, n = 15). The articles used 72 different keywords with emphasis on: COVID-19 (15%), SARS-CoV-2 (12%) and 2019-nCoV (9%). Conclusion. We are facing an unprecedented scenario of information about SARS-CoV-2 and this has required a collective scientific effort reflected in the daily publication of hundreds of studies (articles, pre-prints, clinical guides, protocols). Bibliometric methods are being increasingly used by the scientific community to systematize this information. Therefore, the systematic review carried out in this study provided an overview of the bibliometric literature on the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Publications on COVID-19 in High Impact Factor Journals: A Bibliometric Analysis

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has sickened more than six million people worldwide. This context has led to an abundance of publications quickly since the beginning of the outbreak. In a few months, thousands of scientific papers have appeared. This article aims to provide a bibliometric analysis of the publications on COVID-19 in five high-impact journals indexed to the Web of Science Core Collection's Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) including The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Science, Nature, and JAMA-Journal of the American Medical Association. We found 169 documents associated with the search criteria. The findings indicate that China, the United States, and the United Kingdom are the most represented countries in these publications, The Lancet is the journal with the highest number of contributions with 66% of documents, and the University of Hong Kong leads the ranking of institutions. Future bibliometric and scientometric studies on COVID-19 should provide updated information to analyse other relevant indicators in this field.