ABSTRACT
Objective: to describe the clinical and epidemiologic characteristics of COVID-19 patients in telemonitoring at the first level of care. Materials and methods: descriptive, cross-sectional, retrospective research, with a non-probabilistic convenience sample of 332 records of patients suspected of SARS-CoV-2 from a primary health care center. The data was collected from the SISCOVID 19 platform, with prior permission from the institution, and the personal identification data was protected with codes. Results: of the population studied, they were women (58.73%), mean age 39 years, 31.02% worked in service activities, 22.89% were housewives and 8.73% were health personnel. Hypertension (5.72%), obesity (3.31%) and cardiovascular disease (2.71%) were the most frequent comorbidities. 100.00% diagnosed with rapid test, 86.61% reported having home contact. Symptoms at the start of telemonitoring included: cough (56.02%) and sore throat (50.00%);100% of cases received telephone follow-up, 25.00% longer than 16 days;the symptoms that lasted an average of 6 days were: headache (6.39%) and sore throat (5.92%);and the one that persisted the most was headache (6,385 +/- 4,555 days). Most of the patients presented mild symptoms (67.77%). Conclusions: telemonitoring has great potential for the follow-up of patients in epidemic contexts, because it allows early detection of cases. Therefore, it reduces hospitalizations, reduces the risk of infection for health personnel and families, reduces follow-up operating costs, improves referral of complicated cases and allows education on preventive measures and treatment at home.