Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Research (Aug 2024)
Demographic, Clinical, and Laboratory Characteristics of Patients With COVID-19 Admitted to a Hospital in Khorramabad, Western Iran
Abstract
Background: Assessing the characteristics of patients with COVID-19 considerably helps in the timely detection of infected patients, thus reducing the prevalence of COVID-19 and its mortality. Objectives: This study aims to investigate the demographic, clinical, and laboratory characteristics of patients with COVID-19 admitted to a hospital in Khorramabad City, western Iran, and to find the factors associated with death from COVID-19. Methods: This is a descriptive-analytical study with a cross-sectional design. The data of all patients with COVID-19 hospitalized in Shahadaye Ashayer Hospital in the mid-year of 2021 were examined (n=555). A researcher-made checklist was used to extract patient information, including demographic data, history of smoking, clinical symptoms, history of underlying diseases, and laboratory findings. Then, they were analyzed in SPSS software, version 19, using descriptive statistics, as well as independent t-test and chi-square test. The significance level was set at 0.05. Results: There were 481 recovered cases (86.7%) and 74 deceased cases (13.3%). The mean age of deceased patients was significantly higher than that of the deceased ones (77.18±9.46 vs 58.49±13.25 years). There was also a significant difference between recovered and deceased patients in terms of marital status (P=0.001), occupation (P=0.001), and history of smoking (P=0.002). Shortness of breath (74.2%), dry cough (63.2%), nausea/vomiting (56.6%), and anorexia (57.2%) were the most prevalent clinical symptoms in patients with COVID-19. The most common underlying diseases were hypertension (15%) and diabetes (9.5%). The difference between the deceased and recovered groups was significant in terms of WBC count, neutrophil percentage, creatinine, and potassium levels, where the deceased patients had higher values in these variables. Conclusion: People who died from COVID-19 in Khorramabad City were old, married, and unemployed with underlying diseases and higher WBC count, neutrophil percentage, and creatinine and potassium levels.
