Sufferings of Covid 19 positive patients regarding major symptoms: A prospective observational study
Abstract
Background: First COVID-19 cases were detected in Bangladesh in Dhaka city on the 8th March of 2020. Till then the number of Covid-19 patients is being increased. It is a newer version of a viral disease and it has a ferocious nature of affecting a large number of people within a couple of days. So, to save billions of people we have to acquire clear ideas about the symptoms, sufferings, comorbidities, and treatment options of this disease. In Bangladesh, we have very limited research-oriented data regarding those issues of Covid-19. Aim of the study: The aim of this study was to assess the sufferings of Covid 19 positive patients regarding major symptoms.
Methods: This was a prospective observational study which was conducted in the Department of Medicine Shree-E-Bangla Medical College and Hospital (SBMCH), Barisal, Bangladesh during the period from July 2020 to December 2020. In total 75 RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction) confirmed Covid19 patients who attended the mentioned hospital were selected as the study people. The ethical committee of the mentioned hospital approved this study. Properly written consent was taken from all the participants before starting data collection. A pre-designed questionnaire was used in patent data collection. Data were analyzed and disseminated by MS Office and SPSS version 24.0.
Result: In analyzing the sufferings of patients because of fever, we observed, the peak numbers of patients with mild, moderate, and severe fever were found on the first day of this study which were 27, 9, and 3 respectively. From mild, moderate and severe fever, those patients got relieved on the day 13, 4 and 3 respectively. On the other hand, the peak numbers of patients with mild, moderate and severe cough were found on the day 11, 1 and 2 of this study which was 33, 12 and 6 respectively. From mild, moderate and severe cough, those patients got relieved on the day 16, 6 and 4 respectively. Besides this, the peak numbers of patients with mild, moderate and severe breathlessness were found on the day 4, 1 and 2 of this study which was 18, 15 and 6 respectively. From mild, moderate and severe breathlessness, those patients got relieved on the day 15, 6 and 4 respectively. The peak numbers of patients with sore throat were found on day 3 which was 18 and from this symptom those patients got relieved on day 13. On the first day, the SpO2 percentage was found 96.12±2.64 which was increased up to 97.47±1.18 on the last day of this study.
Conclusion: In this study fever, cough, breathlessness, and sore throat were found as the major symptoms among the Covid-19 positive patients. But we observed fever could be absent in a significant part of patients at initial presentation. Among all the participants, lymphopenia and bilateral alterations at chest CT were very common between patients with COVID-19 and could be helpful in identifying suspected cases.
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References
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