ABSTRACT
An outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019, the causative agent is severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-Co-2). The virus spread quickly to other areas and countries and the disease has become pandemic. This meta-analysis study was carried out to evaluate the clinical characteristics and to assess the prevalence of comorbidities in COVID-19 confirmed patients from January 1, 2020 to December 1, 2020. Totally, 5580 cases were involved in this study, (55.2%) of them were males, the predominant clinical symptoms of COVID-19 patients were fever, cough, and fatigue (61.9, 50.1%, and 34.1% respectively). The most frequent comorbidities were hypertension, diabetes, as well as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases (13.1%, 7.4 %, and 5.9% respectively). The majority of the patients in this study were male, the most prevalent signs and symptoms were fever, cough, and fatigue. The highly repeated comorbidities in the cases were hypertension, diabetes, also cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 is a highly infectious and pathogenic viral disease, its become a global pandemic infection, which is an airborne disease;transmits directly and indirectly between infected cases and other people. Until now, there has been neither vaccine nor specific antivirus medicine against this disease, the only method to prevent the spread of the virus is a preventive practice against the disease, it depends on the knowledge and attitudes of people towards the disease. The online cross-sectional study was undertaken during the pandemic, to estimate Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices towards COVID-19 among a sample of staff and students at Sulaimani Polytechnic University. Data of 270 adult individuals were collected during June 2020 and analyzed. The male/female ratio was 1:88. The mean scores of knowledge, attitudes, and preventive practices of the participants were 7.4 (SD 1.68), 5.5 (SD 1.15), and 6.7 (SD 2.1) respectively. The results reported significant differences between respondents’ knowledge mean score and their gender, and educational background (P=0.005 and P=0.003 respectively). The attitudes mean score of the staff was significantly greater than the attitudes mean score of the students (P=0.021). Likewise, the attitudes mean score was significantly greater in medical subjects compared to non-medical individuals (P<0.001). The respondents with age group ≥45 had a significantly higher preventive practice compared to the other age groups (P<0.001). Similarly, the practices mean score was significantly greater in the staff compared to the students (P< 0.001). The vast majority of the participants (88.5%) used social media for obtaining knowledge and advice on the disease. The study indicates that the respondents had sufficient knowledge, positive attitudes, and good practice toward COVID-19. © 2020, Institute of Medico-Legal Publications. All rights reserved.