Clinical Characteristics of COVID-19 Patients with Digestive Symptoms in a Tertiary Level Hospital

Abstract

Background: The pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has greatly challenged public health worldwide. A growing number of studies have reported gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms. The study aimed to estimate the various digestive symptoms frequently reported in Covid-19 patients among the adult population of Bangladesh. Methods: In this descriptive, cross-sectional study, we enrolled confirmed patients with COVID-19 who were admitted to the COVID unit of Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical college hospital, Dhaka from July 2020 to December 2020. All patients were COVID confirmed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and were analyzed for clinical characteristics, laboratory findings and imaging study. Results: The study population consisted of 121 COVID-19-positive patients, among them, 57.85% were male and 42.15% female. The majority (43%) of the study population were in the age group of 31 - 40 years. The male to female ratio was 1.4:1. Nearly 94.2% of the sample population were married, among them 92.9% were male and 96.1% were female. Out of 121 Covid-19 patients, 30.65% had a contact history, 17.4% had a history of traveling or residing in an area reporting COVID-19 and 11.6% of family members were affected by Covid-19. Most of the patients had a fever (95%), cough (88.4%) and dyspnoea (43.8%), pneumonia (37.4%) and severe pneumonia (36.4%). In this study, 40% patients reported a digestive symptom including diarrhea 47.9%, vomiting 55.5%, loss of appetite 16.5%, abdominal pain 29.8%, abdominal bloating 24.8%, reflux 0%, jaundice 3.3%. Regarding co-morbidities, the majority had bronchial asthma (50%) followed by hypertension 46%, diabetes 38%, obesity 23%, and CKD 14% and heart disease 3%. Among 121 COVID-19 patients, 98% had recovered from the disease and 2% of patients expired. Conclusion: Gastrointestinal symptoms are common among patients with COVID-19 and this group of patients had a long time of hospital stay from onset to admission, and higher liver enzyme levels. During the management of COVID-19 patients, clinicians need to be alert regarding suspicion of the GI features among COVID-19, so that they can diagnose early and treat effectively and immediately.