Faculty’s Satisfaction Degree of Distance Training on Using Blogs in Teaching During the Pandemic

Within the framework of the effort to prevent infection with the Corona virus and as a precautionary measure to preserve the safety of both sides of the educational process, many Arab countries have resorted to distance education. Saudi universities, including Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, have responded to the developments caused by the pandemic by moving towards electronic training, by employing all infrastructure and strategies to shift to e-learning and distance education. This is due to the knowledge of these universities of the importance of continuing training, which is a major factor in the development of the university’s inputs;this reflects positively on the quality of the outputs. This study came to examine the degree of satisfaction of IAU members with the online training provided to them on the use of blogs in education during the pandemic, and whether there are statistically significant differences in the degree of IAU members’ satisfaction with the training as a whole due to a number of variables, using the descriptive approach, and the distribution of a questionnaire to (35) members who attended the training, and the data was analyzed using the SPSS program. The study found that the degree of members’ satisfaction with the training provided to them online on the use of blogs in education during the pandemic is very high in all fields, and the fields were arranged in descending order as follows: the field of the trainer, the content. There were statistically significant differences in the degree of members’ satisfaction with training in favor of the trainer. The study recommended the adoption of training for all members of the university so that the benefit would prevail. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Could glutathione depletion be the Trojan horse of COVID-19 mortality?

OBJECTIVE: Since the emergence of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the death toll has been increasing daily. Many risk factors are associated with a high mortality rate in COVID-19. Establishment of a common pathway among these risk factors could improve our understanding of COVID-19 severity and mortality. This review aims at establishing this common pathway and its possible effect on COVID-19 mortality. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The current review was executed in five consecutive stages starting from determining the risk factors of COVID-19 mortality and trying to find a common pathway among them depending on the available literature. This was followed by proposing a mechanism explaining how this common pathway could increase the mortality. Finally, its potential role in managing COVID-19 was proposed. RESULTS: This review identified this common pathway to be a low baseline of reduced glutathione (i.e., GSH) level. In particular, this review provided an in-depth discussion regarding the pathophysiology by which COVID-19 leads to GSH depletion, tissue damage, and acute respiratory distress syndrome. In addition, the current review demonstrated how GSH depletion could result in failure of the immune system and rendering the end organs vulnerable to damage from the oxidative stress. CONCLUSIONS: This preclinical study shows that GSH depletion may have a central role in COVID-19 mortality and pathophysiology. Therefore, elevating the GSH level in tissues may decrease the severity and mortality rates of COVID-19.