Objectives
This study aims to identify clinical features of COVID 19 in hospitalized patients, comorbidities, complications, mortality rate, laboratory findings, and efficacy of the treatment.
Methods
A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted in one tertiary hospital in the southern region of Saudi Arabia between January to December 2020. Data were extracted from patients’ medical records, including gender, age, weight, nationality, comorbidities, signs and symptoms, days of word admission, ICU stay, connecting on a mechanical ventilator, initial laboratory test, and medications.
Results
Among 202 hospitalized patients, the mean age was 53.39 ± 18.20, 118 were male (58.4%) and 84 females (41.6%). The most prevalent comorbidities were hypertension (51.5%), diabetes mellitus (50.5%), and obesity (25.7%). The result showed most common signs and symptoms were shortness of breath (90.6%), cough (78.7%), fever (70.3%). The most frequent abnormal laboratory findings were d-dimer (67.3%), ferritin (59.9%), neutrophil count (43%), WBC (38.6%), c reactive protein (33.2%). Majority of patients received favipiravir (78.2%), tocilizumab (50.5%), dexamethasone (74.3%), enoxaparin (71.8%), cholecalciferol (89.1%), ascorbic acid (76.7%) and zinc sulfate (75.2%). The complications were ARDS (38.1%), AKI (17,8%), septic shock (10.9%), 45%of the patients admitted to ICU and 39.1% required ventilator, so the mortality rate was 31.7% and cure rate (68.3%).
Conclusions
This study demonstrated signs and symptoms, abnormal laboratory results, complications, and a high mortality rate of hospitalized COVID 19 patients in the southern region of Saudi Arabia. The use of ICU was high among the study population. The mortality rate was high especially for patients with pre-existing conditions. However, a small number of COVID 19 death occurred in healthy adults with no underlying health conditions. Further national studies are needed to generalized these results and to assess the efficacy of the treatment.