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Background & Aims: Along with laboratory testing, chest CT scans may be helpful to diagnose COVID-19 in individuals with a high clinical suspicion of infection. Due to their availability and rapid turnaround time, the role of chest computed tomography (CT) scan is growing for early diagnosis of patients with COVID-19. However, due to the low efficiency of viral nucleic acid detection as well as low specificity of chest CT scan for detecting COVID-19 pneumonia, this method shows incomplete clinical performance for proper COVID-19 disease diagnosis. Due to the highly contagious nature of the Coronavirus 2019 and the importance of early detection of the disease, a limited number of nucleic acid test kits, such as rRT-PCR and the possibility of false-negative rRT-PCR results, chest CT scan as a non-invasive method, it can be a highly accurate tool for early detection of suspected COVID-19 cases. The purpose of this study was the Interpretation of chest CT scan of patints with COVID-19 in Imam Khomeini Hospital of Jiroft University of Medical Sciences from December to March 2019 Methods: This research is a retrospective study that was conducted with the aim of interpreting CT scans of the chest in patients with covid-19 in Imam Khomeini Hospital, Jiroft University of Medical Sciences from March 2018 to June 2019. After obtaining permission from the ethics committee of the university, the researcher appeared in the research environment according to the pre-determined schedule for sampling. The desired data were extracted from the patients' files and recorded in a questionnaire form that was designed for this purpose. The criteria for entering the study included cases whose demographic information, clinical and laboratory data were complete and the positive PCR test along with chest CT imaging findings were available in the file, the exclusion criterion was the presence of low quality chest images. The data were extracted from the hospital information system based on clinical electronic medical records. including demographic information including age, sex, level of education and data related to the underlying disease, disease symptoms (cough, fever, phlegm, shortness of breath, chest pain, etc.) and the frequency of imaging findings in the chest CT scan that They were examined and evaluated according to age, gender, level of education, clinical symptoms, underlying disease and based on lymphopenia and lymphocytosis. and chest CT scan report of patients with COVID-19, which was available in the PACS system of this hospital, were evaluated. In this way, all the CT images of the chest by a radiologist as well as a lung specialist who were not aware of the clinical and laboratory data of the patients, in terms of the types of findings include, Patchy ground glass opcification, diffuse ground glass opacification, Air space opacity, Consolidation, pleural effusion, Atelectasis, Bronchiectasis, Fibrotic change, Cavitation, Lymphadenopathy. And the distribution of conflict was investigated as peripheral, central, bilateral, and unilateral. Results: The highest number of people with Covid-19 were in the age range of 30 to 59 years and men. In CT scan findings, the highest CT scan imaging findings as well as the highest mortality rate in patients were PGGO view (63.3%) and peripheral and bilateral involvement and the lowest frequency was related to Cavitation findings. In the examination of CT scan findings, PGGO and peripheral and bilateral involvement were the most frequent and Cavitation was the least frequent. Also, the findings of PGGO, Peripheral and Bilateral in the CT scan of the people who died had the highest frequency. In none of the imaging findings of the chest scan, there was no statistically significant relationship with the level of education, the level of education and death of patients due to COVID-19. There was no significant difference between gender and the findings of PGGO and Cavitation and peripheral involvement and Bilateral, but between the findings of DGGO and gender and there was a significant relationsh
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Background and Objectives: Caregivers' health literacy is an influential factor in the caregivers' efficiency to meet the physiological and psychological needs of the elderly. The prolongation of the COVID-19 pandemic and the problems of the elderly can be a reason for fear of infection in their caregivers. This study aimed to investigate the fear of COVID-19 in caregivers and its relationship with their health literacy. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on 400 caregivers of the elderly, living in Tehran, Iran during the Summer of 2021. The tools consisted of health literacy, fear of COVID-19, awareness, attitude, and performance were collected through questionnaires. The data was gathered by using an online questionnaire. Data analysis was performed by using SPSS ver.23 with Pearson correlation and regression, and independent t-test. 23. Results: For each increased unit of the health literacy score, the fear of COVID-19 score decreased by 0.185 units (P =0.025). The mean score of health literacy was 75.89 ±14.51 in caregivers of the elderly. The mean score of fear of COVID-19 was 19.42 ±5.02 in caregivers of the elderly. For each increased unit of the health literacy score, the awareness score increases by 0.311 units, the attitude score increases by 0.638 units, and the performance score also increase by 0.214 units. Conclusions: As health literacy increases, the fear of COVID-19 decreases. In addition, most health caregivers have adequate levels of health literacy. It is suggested to set educational policies to increase the health literacy of the caregivers whose health literacy level is not desirable. © 2023, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved.
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Background and Objective: It is necessary to have a suitable tool for measuring the tendency to use the Covid-19 vaccine. The aim of this study was to determine the validity and reliability of the tendency to use Covid-19 vaccine questionnaire among health care workers of a hospital in Tehran, Iran. Materials and Methods: This is an instrumentation type of methodological. Fifty-six questions were considered as the items of the questionnaire. For testing the validity, the face validity and content validity were used in correspondence with 10 experts’ opinions. Reliability check was performed through the Cronbach’s alpha and test-retest. Finally, the structural validity was evaluated with 474 subjects. Results: The results showed that the scales of the tendency to use Covid-19 vaccine questionnaire have an appropriate face validity for all items with an impact score higher than 1.5 and an appropriate content validity ratio in the range of 0.70 and a sufficient content validity index in the range of 0.73 to 087. Also, it had an acceptable internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's alpha) in the range of 0.87 to 0.96. Also, the reliability of the test-retest ranged from 0.68 to 0.92. For the structural validity, 8 factors were selected with a factor value higher than 0.4. Also, in the confirmatory section of the factors an acceptable goodness of fit index (GFI) (Range from 0.91 to 0.98) and the root mean square error in the range of 0.33 to 0.49 was achieved. In total, four questions were removed in the content validity ratio review stage and one question was removed in the content validity index review stage. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the tendency to use Covid-19 vaccine questionnaire has sufficient validity and reliability and is a suitable tool for evaluating the health staff’s tendency towards vaccination. Ultimately, this questionnaire was approved with 8 factors (perceived sensitivity, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, cues to action, self-efficacy, knowledge and behavior) and 51 questions. © 2022 Iranian Association of Health Education and Health Promotion. All rights reserved.
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COVID-19 is an emerging pandemic that caused a very widespread infection with more than 1000000 cases in Iran within a year. The main cause of mortality among patients with COVID-19 is pulmonary failure. In Iranian Traditional Medicine, essences have been used for curing pulmonary diseases. Pinen-Hydronoplacton-Ribonucleic acid (PHR) is an inhaler spray made of seven different plants, which all are used by humans and have desirable pharmacological features for treating pulmonary symptoms of COVID-19 patients. This study was conducted to assess the safety and effectiveness of PHR160 spray in improving pulmonary symptoms of COVID-19 patients. This was a single-centre, non-blinded randomized clinical trial with two parallel groups in two different wards of Baqiyatallah hospital, Tehran, Iran. Participants were 63 male patients diagnosed with COVID-19 pneumonia, divided into 2 groups of 32 in the intervention group and 31 in the control group. The intervention group received 5 days of PHR160 spray, 10 puffs each day, 300 micrograms in each puff in addition to the routine treatment. Oxygen saturation was measured by a pulse oximeter, every six hours and recorded daily. This study showed that administration of PhR 160 in patients of COVID-19 was safe, and it significantly increased the arterial oxygen saturation percentage in COVID-19 patients. In addition, it decreased hospitalization duration, dyspnea score, and cough score significantly in the patients. The statistical modelling test, with adjusting the age and respiratory rate for baseline and 4 days of the intervention, shows that the oxygen saturation percentage mean was significantly more in the intervention group by 5.14 units (p<0.001). © 2022, National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources. All rights reserved.
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Background: The current pandemic of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and severity of the infection and high mortality have almost unprecedented challenges in the health systems of most countries around the world. Objective: The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of Iranian traditional polyherbal medicine (Imfluna) containing a mixture of echinacea, stachys, artemisia, hyssopus, polybody, alpinia, ginger, and ginseng extract on symptoms of COVID-19 infected patients. Methods: In this placebo-controlled and double-blind clinical trial, a total of 60 voluntarily approved patients with COVID-19 were randomly assigned to the placebo and Imfluna groups. Patients in each group, in addition to receiving standard medications, took two 500 mg capsules of Imfluna or placebo every 8 hours for 2 weeks. The patient's vital signs, including the severity of shortness of breath, cough, and body temperature, were recorded during the study. Also blood ESR, liver and kidney function tests were performed at baseline and endpoint. Results: The results showed that patients in the Imfluna-treated group had significantly greater improvement in daily cough, shortness of breath and ESR compared with the placebo group. In addition, lung lesions improved in the Imfluna-treated group, although not significantly. Conclusion: Patients with COVID-19 who were treated with Imfluna for 2 weeks had better comfort and fewer symptoms associated with the disease with no any drug side effects.
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Introduction: The disease related to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has now been a pandemic throughout the world. Although the epidemiological studies and clinical trials are utilized to find standard measures and medicines to prevent and control COVID-19, addressing the mental health and psychology of the people who may be at risk of the disease may also be effective to find comprehensive methods to better overcome this pandemic. This study aimed at investigating the mental status of both the general population and healthcare personnel during this pandemic in Iran.
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Covid-19 is a highly infectious viral disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, which has spread worldwide since its emersion in December 2019, causing an unprecedented pandemic. Currently, it has no targeted vaccines or treatments, and effective treatment options are very limited. It is important to identify drugs that effectively inhibit a specific target of the SARS coronavirus. This is the third deadly outbreak of coronaviruses in human society which has put pressure on the global health care system and affected the global economy a well. However, the treatment options of Covid-19 are still very limited. The development of drugs that target and inhibit essential proteins in the viral life cycle is a practical approach to overcoming this hard situation. The main protease, a cysteine protease, is an attractive target for antiviral drugs against SARS-CoV-2 and other coronavirus infections due to its essential role in viral replication and transcription. To quickly detect effective compounds for clinical use, programs such as molecular docking drug design and virtual screening of pre-designed drugs to identify new compounds and drugs that target the main protease of the COVID-19 are performed. Combining these structural studies, virtual screening, and experimental screen, several therapeutic candidates such as repurposed drugs and ab initio designed drugs have been proposed. In this review study, suggestions for inhibitors and possible potentially effective drugs against the main protease of SARS-CoV-2 were discussed. This study paves the way for advanced experimental research to evaluate the pharmacological potential of these compounds for the treatment of Covid-19.
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Background & Objective: The behavior of COVID-19, clinical symptoms, and mortality rate are not the same in different regions. Due to lack of knowledge about the cited issues, we aimed to investigate the clinical symptoms, case fatality rate, and some risk factors of COVID-19. Materials & Methods: This longitudinal study was started from the late February 2020 and lasted to the mid-July 2020 in Jiroft, Kerman province, Iran. The course of the disease, clinical signs and symptoms, underlying diseases, patients' exposure history, travel history, adherence to health instructions, and the fatality rate of the disease were evaluated in the patients. The descriptive statistics and frequency were analyzed in different groups using IBM SPSS statistics version 20. Results: In this study, 2977 definitive cases of COVID-19 were detected using RT-PCR test. The frequent clinical symptoms were fever (45.2%), body aches and bruises (38.8%), and cough (36.4%), respectively. The fatality rate of the disease was 4%. Evaluation of the patients’ exposure history showed that almost 50% of the cases had no exposure. Among the studied individuals, 33% had the history of exposure to a definite COVID-19 case. Conclusion: Personal hygiene, social distancing, and use of face mask are of great importance in reducing the disease morbidity and mortality. Public awareness about COVID-19 should also be increased, especially in the elderly individuals with the history of underlying and chronic diseases. © 2021, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences and Health Services. All rights reserved.
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Background: Coronaviruses are a large group of viruses from the Coronaviridae family. Not only do the coronaviruses disrupt patients' lives, but they also affect caregivers. This study aimed to assess the burden of family caregivers of COVID-19 patients discharged from a hospital in eastern Iran. Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted with 210 family caregivers of COVID-19 inpatients and outpatients. A total of 210 COVID-19 patients referred to 22nd-Bahman Hospital of Khaf from March 2020 to June 2020 were selected via simple randomization. Data were collected using the Zarit caregiver burden scale and a demographics form. Results: The care burden scores were 83.2% and 80.9% in the family caregivers of inpatients and outpatients, respectively, indicating the severity of care burden for COVID-19 patients. The mean scores of objective, subjective, and subjective-objective caregiver burden were significantly higher in male family caregivers and caregivers of inpatients than in female caregivers and caregivers of outpatients [p <0.01]. Conclusion: The high objective, subjective, and subjective-objective caregiver burden in family caregivers is an alarm for mental health policy-makers. Therefore, healthcare managers need to consider plans and measures to reduce the care burden of family caregivers of COVID-19 patients. © 2020 Mirzaei et al.