ABSTRACT
Background: COVID-19 is newly emerging infectious disease that spread globally at unpredictable and unique pattern to the extent that the World Health Organization announced COVID-19 as a pandemic in the first couple months of 2020. This study aims to describe clinical and demographic features of COVID-19 patients and the influence of various risk factors on the severity of disease. Methods: This research is a retrospective study based on Saudi Arabia's ministry of health's Covid-19 data. The analysis relies on data of all COVID-19 patients recorded in Riyadh between 1st, March 2020 and 30th, July 2020. Statistical analyses were performed to investigate the effect of demographic characteristic, clinical presentation, and comorbidities on infection severity. Results: A total number of 1026 COVID-19 patients were identified based on the demographic data as follows: 709 cases (69% of cases) were males and 559 cases (54% of cases) were Saudi. Most of patients were diagnosed with mild signs and symptoms 697 (68% of cases), while 164 patient (16% of cases) demonstrated moderate signs and symptoms, and 103 cases (10%) were severe and 62 (6%) had critical febrile illness. Fever, cough, sore throat, and shortness of breath were the most common symptoms among patients with COVID-19. Among studied comorbidities in COVID-19 patients, diabetes mellitus and hypertension were the most prevalent. The results from the bivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that older age, diabetes mellitus, asthma, smoking, and fever are associated with severe or critically ill cases. Conclusion: The findings of this study show that old age, fever, and comorbidities involving diabetes mellitus, asthma, and smoking were significantly associated with infection severity. (c) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
ABSTRACT
Background: Coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19) infection has been announced as a global health problem nowadays. The loss of smell and taste are frequent complains of COVID-19 patients. However, the exact mechanism underlying these manifestations remains unclear. This study aimed to determine the prevalence, identify potential risk factors and detect recovery of olfactory and gustatory dysfunction in confirmed COVID-19 patients in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on confirmed COVID-19 patients in KSA. The study recruited patients of both sexes, aged 18 and above, and clinically stable. All participants are invited to complete an electronic questionnaire to give data on their age, sex, comorbidities, general and otolaryngologic symptoms and olfactory and gustatory status, and the recovery of this presentation. Results: The study recruited 428 confirmed COVID-19 patients. Of these 15.4% were health care workers, 20.3% were smokers, 8.6% had asthma and chest diseases, 6.1% were diabetic and 10.7% had recurrent inflammations. Loss of smell/taste was reported by 75.2% of patients, with 13.1% had loss of smell only, 5.8% had loss of taste only and 56.3% had both. Complete improvement of smell/taste disorders was reported by 51.2%. The duration needed for improvement was 1 week in 32.2%, >3 weeks in 34.4%. Non improvement was reported by 14.3% and was more likely in younger patients (18-25 years). Other reported COVID-19 manifestations were fever (63.8%), tiredness and body ache (61.2%), headache (59.1%), sore throat (30.4%) and gastrointestinal symptoms (21.1%). Conclusion: Olfactory and gustatory dysfunctions are common presentation of COVID-19 infection in KSA. They might present early and without other symptoms, which can help in diagnosis of COVID-19 infection.