“A Systematic Review on Clinical Characteristics and Co Morbidities of Covid 19 Patients”

Abstract

Rationale of the study: Novel corona virus disease outbreak occurred in 2019 presenting as a respiratory illness. This infection spread to the whole world and caused significant mortality and morbidity. Clinical presentation and complications of COVID 19 are still obscure which needs to be explored.

Aim of the study: This article aims at exploring the role and contributions of comorbidities in patients with COVID 19 infection.

Materials and methods: A meta-analysis from 12 published articles obtained from electronic literature search was performed using PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, google scholar and MedLine Plus. Full text articles published from 2020-2022 which were written in English were selected.

Results: In this meta-analysis the total sample size was 7708, of which the median age of presentation was 57yrs. There was a predominance of males with the M:F ratio being 1.2:1. The most common symptom noted was fever (75.18%) and loss of smell (74.90%), the least common symptom was vomiting (4.76%). The most common co morbidity seen associated with Covid 19 patients was hypertension (34.54%) and diabetes (20.99%) and the least common was malignancy (2.02%) and the p value noted was >0.05.

Conclusion: Covid 19 infection presents with acute respiratory distress syndrome and its clinical progression and prognosis is impacted by the presence of comorbidities especially hypertension and diabetes. This may help in proper identification of patients in risk category and prompt to take necessary precautions while treating the patients..