The pandemic from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the pathogen responsible for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has lifted the importance of critical care medicine in emerging infectious diseases. The rapidly rising infection and death rates associated with COVID-19 has caused a surge capacity and forced critical care providers to manage patients with a rapidly evolving disease they are otherwise unfamiliar with. This has caused guidance and recommendations from authorities to be volatile and rapidly evolving. For example, the personal protective equipment and isolation recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO) rapidly changed from universal N-95 respirator masks and airborne isolation to droplet isolation, contact precautions, and eye protection on patients not undergoing aerosolizing procedures.
Patients infected with HIV are best categorized along a continuum from rapid progressors to HIV long-term nonprogressors. Long-term nonprogressors (LTNPs) are those in which AIDS develop many years after being infected with HIV, often beyond the 10-year mark, and represent 15–20% of the HIV infected patients. Many of these patients are able to control their infection and maintain undetectable viral loads for long periods of time without antiretroviral therapy. After a comprehensive literature search, we found extensive data related to HIV LTNPs in the adult population; however, very limited data was available related to LTNPs within the pediatric population. We present a case of pediatric HIV LTNPs, perinatally infected patient with undetectable viral loads, despite never receiving ART. Although there are not many instances of LTNPs among children, this child may be one, though she had intermittent viremia. She has continued to manifest serologic evidence of infection, with yearly ELISA and western blot positive tests. Based on the viral fitness studies that were performed, this case exemplifies an adolescent LTNP.
OBJECTIVES:
To determine the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 on burnout syndrome in the multiprofessional ICU team and to identify factors associated with burnout syndrome.
DESIGN:
Longitudinal, cross-sectional survey.
SETTING:
All adult ICUs within an academic health system.
SUBJECTS:
Critical care nurses, advanced practice providers, physicians, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, social workers, and spiritual health workers were surveyed on burnout in 2017 and during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in 2020.
INTERVENTIONS:
None.
MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS:
Burnout syndrome and contributing factors were measured using the Maslach Burnout Inventory of Health and Human Service and Areas of Worklife Survey. Response rates were 46.5% (572 respondents) in 2017 and 49.9% (710 respondents) in 2020. The prevalence of burnout increased from 59% to 69% (p < 0.001). Nurses were disproportionately impacted, with the highest increase during the pandemic (58–72%; p < 0.0001) with increases in emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and personal achievement decreases. In contrast, although burnout was high before and during coronavirus disease 2019 in all specialties, most professions had similar or lower burnout in 2020 as they had in 2017. Physicians had the lowest rates of burnout, measured at 51% and 58%, respectively. There was no difference in burnout between clinicians working in ICUs who treated coronavirus disease 2019 than those who did not (71% vs 67%; p = 0.26). Burnout significantly increased in females (71% vs 60%; p = 0.001) and was higher than in males during the pandemic (71% vs 60%; p = 0.01).
CONCLUSIONS:
Burnout syndrome was common in all multiprofessional ICU team members prior to and increased substantially during the pandemic, independent of whether one treated coronavirus disease 2019 patients. Nurses had the highest prevalence of burnout during coronavirus disease 2019 and had the highest increase in burnout from the prepandemic baseline. Female clinicians were significantly more impacted by burnout than males. Different susceptibility to burnout syndrome may require profession-specific interventions as well as work system improvements.