2.4. Medical vs. Health Science Group
Although all participants within COL and PBO groups were subjects of identical treatment in accordance with trial protocol, we have dissected our trial groups based on the course of the study for final analysis. Thus, we obtained two major groups—MED and Hsci—which differed in some important respects, such as study workload and exposure to the infectious factors. Both of these factors were related to the course of the study in our experimental population. The workload is seemingly much larger in the medicine program than other HSci studies, which is a common opinion, fully substantiated by the experiences of our research team members—mostly medical university teachers. All of the participants in the MED group of our trial were 3rd year students and attended their practical classes in hospital units and outpatient clinics on a regular basis, which created a high risk of contact with infectious factors. The majority of our HSci students were 1st year students and had most of their classes held in lecture halls, dedicated classrooms or an online setting (due to the COVID-19 risk). According to these faculty groups’ characteristics, we obtained a group of potentially increased risk of URTIs (MED) and the control group with regular risk (HSci).