ABSTRACT
Background: Corona virus disease 2019 pandemic had a major impact on the general wellbeing of people. Hypertension patients are more liable to psychological stress. This study aims to assess the prevalence of psychological stress in hypertensive patients affected by Covid-19 in Madinah. Methods: Hypertension patients in Al Madinah were invited to participate in an online questionnaire in the period from December 2020 to May 2021. It included the personal data, questions assessing hypertension and psychological health status using the General Health Questionnaire. Results: Total number of participants in our study was 588. 30.8% of participants were mildly distressed and 6.8% were severely distressed. Females are being more at risk of severe distress. Regarding taking prescribed medications there was a significant relationship between groups. Conclusion: The prevalence was found to be 0.376. Hypertensive patients in Al Madinah are at more risk of psychological stress especially females, students, unemployed, and those who are not adherent to their medications. More psychological care should be provided to them in pandemics. Objectives: To evaluate the prevalence of psychological stress after Covid-19 in hypertensive patients in Madinah.
ABSTRACT
Sialic acid that presents on the surface of lung epithelial cells is considered as one of the main binding targets for many respiratory viruses, including influenza and the current coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) through the viral surface protein hemagglutinin. Gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) are extensively used in the diagnostic field owing to a phenomenon known as 'surface plasmonic resonance' in which the scattered light is absorbed by these NPs and can be detected via UV-Vis spectrophotometry. Consequently, sialic acid conjugated Au NPs (SA-Au NPs) were utilized for their plasmonic effect against SARS-CoV-2, influenza B virus, and Middle-East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS) in patients' swab samples. The SA-Au NPs system was prepared by a one-pot synthesis method, through which the NPs solution color changed from pale yellow to dark red wine color, indicting its successful preparation. In addition, the SA-Au NPs had an average particle size of 30 +/- 1 nm, negative zeta potential (-30 +/- 0.3 mV), and a UV absorbance of 525 nm. These NPs have proven their ability to change the color of the NPs solutions and patients' swabs that contain SARS-CoV-2, influenza B, and MERS viruses, suggesting a rapid and straightforward detection tool that would reduce the spread of these viral infections and accelerate the therapeutic intervention.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Recent occurrence of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has highlighted the need for fast, accurate, and simple strategies to identify cases on a large scale. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to develop and test an accurate detection and severity classification methodology that may help medical professionals and non-radiologists recognize the behavior and propagation mechanisms of the virus by viewing computed tomography (CT) images of the lungs with implicit materials. METHODS: In this study, the process of detecting the virus began with the deployment of a virtual material inside CT images of the lungs of 128 patients. Virtual material is a hypothetical material that can penetrate the healthy regions in the image by performing sequential numerical measurements to interpret images with high data accuracy. The proposed method also provides a segmented image of only the healthy parts of the lung. RESULTS: The resulting segmented images, which represent healthy parts of the lung, are classified into six levels of severity. These levels are classified according to physical symptoms. The results of the proposed methodology are compared with those of the radiologists' reports. This comparison revealed that the gold-standard reports correlated with the results of the proposed methodology with a high accuracy rate of 93%. CONCLUSION: The study results indicate the possibility of relying on the proposed methodology for discovering the effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the lungs through CT imaging analysis with limited dependency on radiologists.