Background & Aims Patients with eating disorders (ED) are known to suffer from various psychological morbidities thus they are expected to be negatively impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our meta-analysis aims to evaluate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the pooled prevalence of psychological comorbidities in ED patients. Methods Pubmed, Scopus, GoogleScholar, and medRxiv were searched using the keywords COVID19 and Eating Disorders and their related MeSH terms. The articles were included if they contained patients with diagnosed EDs and having evaluated their mental health disturbances during the COVID-19 pandemic. The quality of the included studies was assessed using the “assessing risk of bias in prevalence studies” tool. The heterogeneity was assessed using Cochrane Q and I2 heterogeneity statistics. Results A total of 13 articles have been included in this meta-analysis with a sample size of 3,056. The pooled prevalence of ED patients who experienced worsening of ED symptoms was 57% (95%CI: 36%-76%), anxiety was 64% (95%CI: 39%-78%), and depression was 55% (95%CI: 12%-87%) during the pandemic. Conclusions This meta-analysis provides evidence supporting an increase in the pooled prevalence of mental health disorders among patients suffering from EDs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective: To provide an overview of retractions of research papers contributed by authors from the Arab region. Method: Papers in which the first author was affiliated to an Arabian country were selected from the Retraction Watch database covering the period 1 January 1998 to 31 December 2018. The retrieved records were divided into nine categories based on the reasons for retraction. Results: The search yielded 322 retractions, and the most frequent reason for retraction was plagiarism (34.5%). The median time from publication to retraction was 14 (25%-75% percentile 5-30) months. The number of papers retracted each year as well as the number of papers published in a given year but subsequently retracted increased steadily over the 21 years. The proportion of retracted papers to the total number of published papers (0.17%) was higher than the global proportion and was the highest for Algeria (1%) and the lowest for Lebanon (0.03%). Of the countries within the Arab region, 12 out of 14 countries showed either plagiarism or duplication as the most common reason for retraction; however, the countries differed in terms of the number of retractions and the time from publishing to retraction. Conclusion: Plagiarism was the most common cause of retraction in the Arab countries. The increase in the number of papers retracted each year was probably because searches now extend farther in the past, whereas the increase in the number of papers published in a given year but subsequently retracted can be attributed to the overall increase in the number of papers published.

This study aims to evaluate the impact of self-isolation on the level of adherence to health protective measures among medical students in Jordan and on their clinical education. Because of being suspected of having or testing positive for COVID-19, 336 students were self-isolated . A questionnaire was sent to study the clinical adherence of students to COVID-19 protective measures after their self-isolation period, the student’s satisfaction about the policy followed during the pandemic, the impact of these measures on their clinical training, and the level of vaccine acceptance among them. The study included 283 participants, with a mean age of 22.5 (±1.50) years; 49.5% males and 50.5% females. We found that students’ adherence to protective measures generally increased after their self-isolation. Gender, age, and having an infection from the hospital were the most important predictors for better adherence to health safety measures. Most students (83%) have registered to take the vaccine. 97.5% of self-isolated students reported that they are aware and satisfied of the School of Medicine instructions and policies. The findings suggest the need to ensure that medical students’ clinical training should not be negatively affected by COVID-19 and COVID-19 self-isolation, as medical students are adherent to COVID-19 precautionary measures and willing to take the vaccine.