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Background: Vitamin C is a micronutrient with anti-inflammatory and free radical scavenging properties that can strengthen the body’s immune system. In this study, it was attempted to assess the clinical efficiency of oral vitamin C in treating COVID-19. Materials and Methods: This double-blind randomized clinical trial was conducted on 401 patients hospitalized in Taleghani hospital, Abadan, over 18 years of age and with confirmed COVID-19 infection, from November 2020 to May 2021. The patients were randomly assigned to intervention groups (201 people, two tablets per day, each containing 500 mg of vitamin C) and the control group (200 people, placebo, containing starch received for five days). Improvements in clinical symptoms, death from baseline to the 28-day follow-up after the intervention, hospital length of stay, and laboratory values of C-reactive protein (CRP) were some of the considered outcome variables. Results: No significant difference was observed between the two groups in terms of the daily improvement of clinical symptoms and the odds of healing from each symptom increased by about 48-50%. The difference in the length of hospital stay between the two groups was close to significant (P=0.051). There was no significant difference in mortality between the two groups (P=0.8). There was no difference between the two groups in the laboratory parameters, except for alkaline phosphatase (P=0.03). Conclusion: Vitamin C had no significant effect on improving patients’ clinical symptoms such as fatigue, fever, cough, and shortness of breath.

Background: In December 2019, a new virus, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was identified as the cause of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan, China. The COVID-19 disease increases cardiovascular events both directly and indirectly. This study aimed to investigate the laboratory diagnostic markers of cardiovascular patients with COVID-19 in Ayatollah Taleghani hospital in Abadan from March 20, 2020 to March 19, 2021. Materials and Methods: This study is a cross-sectional analytical study. Some demographic, laboratory, and clinical information of 200 cardiovascular patients with COVID-19 admitted to Taleghani hospital, Abadan, was received randomly by referring to the medical records section and medical records section and health information system (HIS) as well as searching in the patient records. Inclusion criteria included cardiovascular patients with COVID-19 who had been admitted to Ayatollah Taleghani hospital in Abadan with the diagnosis of a cardiologist and infectious disease specialist, and those whose information was available in HIS. The results were analyzed using SPSS software version 24. Results: The mean age of cardiovascular patients with COVID-19 was reported to be 66.98±18.14. The results revealed that the mean of fasting blood sugar (FBS), serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (SGOT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatinine (Cr), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) was higher than the normal level in these patients. In addition, the mean oxygen saturation (SpO2) was observed to be lower than normal. Reducing the level of SpO2 to less than 90% was significantly related to increasing age, death, patients with a history of lung disease, the duration of hospitalization in ICU, and intubation. This reduction also led to an increase in respiratory rate (RR), LDH, ESR, and C-reactive protein (CRP+1) in cardiovascular patients with COVID-19. Conclusion: In cardiovascular patients with COVID-19, FBS, some kidney markers, liver markers, and inflammatory markers were observed to be higher than normal, and a significant relationship was observed between the reduction of SpO2 and some laboratory diagnostic markers, which requires extensive studies with larger sample size.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a significant challenge to education systems worldwide, disrupting traditional teaching and learning methods. This study aims to explore the perceptions of medical students at Abadan University of Medical Sciences regarding electronic assessment methods during the pandemic. Methods: This qualitative study utilized conventional content analysis and involved medical students in their second semester of 2021 who had chosen a unit during the pandemic. Results: Through the analysis process, the participants’ experiences were categorized into six main classes, which included the following: information technology infrastructure, teaching methods of teachers, design of virtual exam questions, monitoring of online exams, psychological issues, and types of virtual assessment. Conclusion: The medical students shared their experiences with virtual assessment during the pandemic, highlighting challenges related to internet infrastructure, communication issues between teachers and students, exam monitoring, psychological factors, reduced learning efficiency due to virtual summative assessment alone, and better learning efficiency through formative assessment alongside summative assessment. They also suggested improvements to online exams, such as increasing the number of questions on each page, allowing the possibility to return to previous questions, and ensuring non-randomness in clinical questions.

Background: The alarming outbreak of the COVID-19 virus significantly disrupted all aspects of human life, including education. As a result, e-learning has become a vital tool for education. This study aimed to investigate the attitudes of medical and anesthesia students toward e-learning in physiology during the pandemic of COVID-19. Methods: This descriptive study was conducted among 67 medical and anesthesiology students at Abadan University of Medical Sciences who studied physiology in the second semester of 2020-2021 in the form of e-learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A researcher-created questionnaire was used, rating items on a five-point Likert scale. Data were entered into SPSS 21 for statistical analysis and analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: A total of 73.1% of the participants in this study were women. The favorable opinions of students by percentage were as follows: satisfactory access to the Internet, 71.0%; the possibility of downloading educational content from the educational system, 88.2%; effective communication between teacher and student through e-learning, 20.6%; e-learning by combining online and offline education, 69.1%; the suitability of offline educational content due to accessibility convenient to learn at any time and place where the student wants to learn, 75%; face-to-face education is more suitable than e-learning, 60.3%. Conclusion: Effective communication between teacher and student is weak in virtual/online education. Students were generally positive about a combination of online and offline virtual education together and liked offline educational content due to ease of access at any time and place. In general, students preferred face-to-face teaching to virtual education.