Relationship between Alcoholism and Severity of COVID-19 Infection: An Institution Based Study

ABSTRACT

Background: Pandemic caused by Covid 19 infection witnessed several patients suffering from severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) due to severe inflammatory response. Risk factors that contributed to severe covid 19 infection include age, diabetes, previous lung disease, liver and kidney disease. Several other risk factors like smoking, alcoholism, hypertension and obesity are also being studied to understand their contribution in causing severe covid 19 infection and death. Alcohol is well known to cause immunosuppression and multiple organ injury including liver, pancreas and lung. It is a necessity to understand the effect of alcoholism on covid severity and risk of infection to create better awareness and understand the prognosis of covid 19 infection among alcoholics. The relationship of Alcoholism and COVID-19 infection is still controversial. In the literature, fewer studies are done to assess alcoholism and covid severity. Objective: The present study is done to find out the relationship of alcohol consumption on Covid severity among individuals admitted at Covid designated tertiary care hospital. Materials and Methods: This retrospective, cross sectional study was carried out in a covid designated tertiary care hospital. After approval from Institute Ethics Committee (Human studies), the patients admitted for covid illness from January 2021 to June 2021 were taken up for the study and their case records from medical records department were studied. Telephonic conversation was also done for patients with inadequate data. The collected data was entered in google forms and MS excel sheet and analysis done using descriptive statistics involving SPSS (version 24). Result: A total of 1109 patients were included in the study. Most of the patients in our study were males-851(76.73). The malefemale ratio was 3.21. The maximum patient belonged to the age range 30 to 60 years. CT severity was mild in most of the patients (32.82%). Diabetes was the most common (33.18%) comorbidity among the study population. Majority of the admitted patients were Non-alcoholics 884 (79.7%). Among alcoholics and non-alcoholics, majority showed normal, mild to moderate CT severity. There is no statistically significant association between alcoholism and CT severity score compared to non-alcoholics (p value=0.947). Also, there is no significant association between alcoholism and Covid severity among Diabetic and Hypertensive patients compared to patients without these medical morbidities. Conclusion: In conclusion, majority of the patients who required admission in hospital for covid illness treatment were non-alcoholics. There is no significant association between alcoholism and covid-19 severity compared to general population. Also, there is no significant association between alcoholism and Covid severity among Diabetic and Hypertensive patients. Further human and experimental studies with more sample size is needed for further clarification of our findings.