Gastrointestinal symptoms involvement in hospitalised COVID-19 patients in Liverpool, UK: a descriptive cross-sectional, single-centre study

ABSTRACT

Introduction Since December 2019, COVID-19 has caused huge global morbidity and mortality.1 Although the disease is primarily a respiratory illness, gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms are increasingly recognised.2 However, reported literature on the prevalence of these symptoms is conflicting, as is their relationship with disease course and outcome.3,4 We aimed to identify the prevalence of GI symptoms among a cohort of UK hospitalised adults with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 and to describe the association of GI symptoms with patient characteristics, clinical course and outcome. Patients with GI symptoms were more likely to have a BMI of >25 on univariate analysis (odds ratio (OR) 1.6;95% confidence interval (CI) 1.0-2.5;p = 0.04). The mortality rate of the cohort was 37.2% with no statistically significant difference between the symptom groups in multivariate analysis.