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Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has placed extraordinary mental health burdens on healthcare professionals. For women, it is a major challenge to reconcile the diverse roles of a professional, mother, and wife. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this, increasing their vulnerability to mental health issues. Objectives The aim of the study was to assess COVID-19-related mental health of healthcare professionals and to investigate whether possible gender differences as well as other parameters are associated with mental health disturbances. Methods We conducted a nationwide cross-sectional study of healthcare professionals working in hospitals or primary care settings in Greece from April to June 2022. Participants answered a questionnaire that included socio-demographic and other parameters, the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS), the Coronavirus Reassurance-Seeking Behaviors Scale (CRBS), and the Obsession with COVID-19 scale (OCS). Results A total of 464 healthcare professionals participated in the study, 71.2% were females and two-thirds were 31-50 years old. Elevated levels of anxiety, frequent reassurance seeking activities and persistent troubling thoughts related to COVID-19 were found in 5.8%, 3.2% and 6.1%, respectively. However, females reported significant higher mean levels on CAS and CRBS compared to males (2.41 vs 1.60, p=0.015, and 3.36 vs 2.64, p=0.041, respectively). Participants living in smaller areas had increased levels on all three scales (CAS, p < 0.001; CRBS, p = 0.007; OCS, p < 0.001), indicating thus higher coronaphobia, more frequent reassurance-seeking behaviors and disturbed thinking about COVID-19, compared to healthcare workers living in urban regions. Furthermore, lower educational level is also associated with higher values on CAS, CRBS and OCS (p < 0.003; p = 0.017; p < 0.023, respectively). Nurses experience higher anxiety scores (2.96) than physicians (1.92, p=0.013) or other healthcare workers (1.87, p=0.016). No dysfunctional thinking about COVID-19 is observed in medical doctors, whereas nurses and other healthcare workers experience higher levels on OCS. Conclusions Our study does not show any worrying increased psychological dysfunction related to COVID-19 pandemic among healthcare workers in general. However, females have increased levels than males. Thus, support and mental health protecting strategies should be applied primarily to female healthcare professionals when necessary. Disclosure of Interest None Declared

Introduction Those who have lost loved ones to COVID-19 may be considered at risk of complicated grief. A 5-item mental health screening tool called the Pandemic Grief Scale (PGS) was developed to find likely instances of dysfunctional grief during the pandemic. Objectives To develop a Greek version of PGS and to explore the validity and reliability among the general population in Greece in order to further use it as clinical mental health screener. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study between January and April 2022, and 342 persons were recruited. The questionnaire included socio-demographic parameters, the PGS, the Brief Resilience Coping Scale to capture tendencies to cope with stress and the Athens Insomnia Scale to assess the insomnia symptoms. Based on experiences over the previous two weeks, each PGS item is scored on a 4-point scale, from 0 (not at all) to 3 (almost every day), with higher rating and a cut-off of 7 indicating dysfunctional grief. Prior to the psychometric validation a linguistic validation and adaptation in Greek was performed. Results A total of 342 patients participated in the study, 67.8 % were females and 27.8% were 18-30 years old. Coefficient Validity Ratio (CVR) results showed that 100% (n = 5) of items were acceptable. Value of Cronbach’s alpha was found 0.848. A one-factor model was conducted by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), giving acceptable global fit indices. The resulting global fit indices [Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = 0.037, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.952, Tucker–Lewis Index (TLI)= 0.903] showed that the 5 items in one-factor solution proposed by the primary researchers shouldn’t be rejected for the Greek version. The Bartlett Test of Sphericity was 758.08 (p

Background/Objectives : Depressive and anxiety syndromes are associated with elevated disability and are more prevalent in women. Data on the prevalence of depressive and anxiety disorders in the rural context are limited and contradictory. It is relevant to study common mental disorders in rural areas in the most vulnerable population of women, particularly in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era. Methods : This is a cross-sectional study that was conducted in two primary healthcare sites in the rural region of Farsala, Central Greece after the obviation of all restrictive measures that had been posed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All consecutive female patients that attended the study sites for any non-emergent reason were asked to participate in the study. For the recording of symptoms of depression and anxiety, the self-reported Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) was used. Results : The study sample consisted of 129 women. The majority of participants were >50 years, with 27.9% being older adults. A small percentage (13.2%) suffered a chronic physical disease. A large proportion of the sample, slightly exceeding 40%, reported clinically relevant symptoms of anxiety, whereas a lower percentage of women with depressive symptoms was detected (17.1%). Symptoms of anxiety and depression were found to be interrelated, while a number of sociodemographic variables were associated with both, such as older age, education (primary), living status (alone, OR 123.5; 95% CI: 7.3-2098.8 for anxiety; OR 3.5; 95% CI: 1.3-9.8 for depression), employment (not working, (OR 0.157; 95% CI: 0.06-0.41 for anxiety; OR 0.08; 95% CI: 0.01-0.62 for depression) and the history of a chronic disease (OR 33.8; 95% CI: 4.3-264.7 for anxiety; OR 37.2; 95% CI: 10-138.1 for depression). Self-rated financial status was not related to symptoms of anxiety or depression. Conclusions : The study highlights the importance of inquiring for symptoms of depression and anxiety in women attending the rural primary care setting. The use of valid and reliable self-reported instruments that are easy to administrate may be helpful in this regard.

Hemodialysis is a widely performed and safe procedure; therefore, the numbers of long-term survivors on hemodialysis therapy have been increasing. We present a woman who had been on uninterrupted hemodialysis for 30 years and did well for much of her time on hemodialysis, despite a long-standing uneven course. The literature of extremely long-lived patients on un-interrupted hemodialysis is reviewed and the clinical characteristics and complications encountered in these patients are discussed.