ABSTRACT
Introduction: Few studies have been conducted to construct a reliable predictive model for the differential diagnosis of severe and non-severe Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) in the early stages of the disease. This study aimed to compare the accuracy of linear discriminate analysis (LDA) and binary logistic regression (BLR), as two empirical correlations, in predicting COVID-19 severity using single laboratory data and calculated indexes such as the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and systemic immune-inflammation index (SII). Materials and Methods: We investigated 109 patients with confirmed COVID-19 pneumonia. Epidemiological, demographic, clinical, laboratory, and outcome data were obtained, and the patients were classified into two groups: mild group (42 patients) and severe group (67 patients). Results: A comparison of the clinical data in the severe and non-severe groups showed significant differences in SpO(2) and respiratory rate. In addition, significant difference in NLR, SII, white blood cell count, neutrophil count, mean corpuscular volume and mean corpuscular hemoglobin, lymphocyte count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, lactate dehydrogenase, and blood urea nitrogen was found between both groups. Moreover, there was a small difference between the LDA and LR models, and LDA was more appropriate for a smaller sample size. Conclusion: Our predictive models could help clinicians to identify patients at risk of severe COVID-19 Such prediction can be performed by a simple blood test. LDA and BLR can be used to effectively classify patients with severe and non-severe COVID-19, even with violation of the normality assumption.
ABSTRACT
Recently, many of the studies have illustrated that the new pandemic SARS-CoV-2 can affect Central Nervous System through the olfactory bulb. In addition to investigating anosmia or hyposmia induced by this virus, a quantitative analysis was needed to clarify the taste and smell disorder of the new coronavirus. The four basic taste quality with five concentrations for sweet, sour, bitter, and salty were administered to 75 subjects divided into three groups: COVID-19 patients with taste disorder, COVID-19 patients without taste disorder, and control group. The results indicated the increment of sweet (2.68 ± 0.14), sour (3.34 ± 0.12) and bitter (3.39 ± 0.2) thresholds in COVID-19 patients with taste disorder in comparison with patients without taste disorder that the threshold were: 2 ± 0.16, 2.11 ± 0.2 and 2.55 ± 0.5 for sweet, sour, and bitter respectively. On the other hand, the patients inversely showed a significant decrease in the salty taste threshold (0.51 ± 0.03) compared to COVID-19 positive control groups (1.11 ± 0.11). Additionally, despite taste disorder in almost all of the patients with smell deficiency, only 30% of cases with taste disorder reported smell deficiency. It may be concluded that some of the taste disorders in patients with COVID-19 disorder could be associated with taste receptors dysfunction or the spread of infection to the cranial nerves responsible for the conduction of tastes sensation.
ABSTRACT
Background and Aim: Military personnel is one of the levels of society whose psychological assessment is important in the current situation. During the prevalence of COVID-19, the military is also alongside health defenders has fought the virus, therefore, awareness of the mental state of the military forces has led to the recognition of their real needs, and helps planners to increase the optimal performance of military personnel. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate and compare the state of mental health and sleep quality between military and civilian personnel during the outbreak of COVID-19.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: The propagation of the new coronavirus, COVID 19, is still a major priority for many countries around the world. Because of the lack of effective certain antiviral therapy for COVID 19. Special medicinal protocols are needed in medical centers to reduce the mortality rate. Methods: Due to constant change of national pharmacotherapy protocols for COVID-19 patients, this study compares the outcomes of three specific pharmacotherapy regimens (Table 1) and the combination of all 3 regimens for management of 614 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Baqiyatallah hospital in Tehran, this hospital became a referral centers for receiving COVID 19 patients in Iran. Results: The more reliable result of treatments belongs to regimen 3 which indicated 98.26% recovered patients and 1.15% mortality rate and the lowest period of hospitalization with 4.4±0.21 days' duration. Conclusion: It seems that regimen 3 (with a special combination of antiviral and Azithromycin ant anti-inflammatory drugs) had the best result in improving patients with COVID 19 and this result has not conflict with the comorbidity status of patients.