Background: burnout syndrome is a serious and growing problem among medical staff. Its adverse outcomes not only affect health-care providers’ health, but also extend to their patients, resulting in bad-quality care. The COVID-19 pandemic puts frontline health-care providers at greater risk of psychological stress and burnout syndrome. Objectives: this study aimed to identify the levels of burnout among health-care professionals currently working at Assiut University hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: the current study adopted an online cross-sectional design using the SurveyMonkey® website for data collection. A total of 201 physicians were included and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) scale was used to assess the three burnout syndrome dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. Results: about one-third, two-thirds, and one-quarter of the respondents had high emotional exhaustion, high depersonalization, and low personal accomplishment, respectively. Younger, resident, and single physicians reported higher burnout scores. The personal accomplishment score was significantly higher among males. Those working more than eight hours/day and dealing with COVID-19 patients had significantly higher scores. Conclusion: during the COVID-19 pandemic, a high prevalence of burnout was recorded among physicians. Age, job title, working duration, and working hours/day were significant predictors for burnout syndrome subscale results. Preventive and interventive programs should be applied in health-care organizations during pandemics.

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Purpose: To compare no-sedation versus daily interruption of sedation (DIS) in COPD patients receiving mechanical ventilation upon the ventilator-free days. Martials and methods: Patients were randomly assigned to either DIS (n=50) or no-sedation (n=47) (intervention group). Patients failed to be managed by no-sedation strategy (n=9, 19.1%) were shifted to DIS, but analyzed in their parent group (intention to treat principle). Ventilator-free days was the primary outcome measure. Secondary outcome measures included: length of stay in the hospital and in intensive care unit (ICU), the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), and weaning process (simple, difficult or prolonged). Nurse workload was assessed by the visual analogue scale (VAS). Results: no significant difference was found in ventilator-free days between DIS and no-sedation (mean 19.9 vs. 21.5 days, P=0.6). As well, we found no significant difference in length of ICU stay (P=0.7) and hospital stay (P=0.4). There was no significant difference in the incidence of VAP (P=1.0) nor in the weaning process (simple, difficult or prolonged) (P=0.328) between the two groups. The no-sedation group showed a higher nurse workload in comparison to the DIS group. (4.38 vs. 5.69, P<0.001). Conclusions: No-sedation protocol can be used safely in COPD patients with respiratory failure, but with no influence upon the ventilator-free days.

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