Background: Most commonly reported symptoms for COVID-19 patients are anosmia, dysgeusia, cough, myalgias,and headache, with no specific clinical features that can reliably distinguish COVID-19 from other respiratory infections.
Objectives: To describe the most frequent presenting symptoms of COVID-19, guide case suspicion,based on clinical manifestations, and characterize case severity.
Patients and Methods: This was a retrospective descriptive hospital-based research design conducted at the Armed Forces Hospitals, Northwestern Region, in Tabuk City, Saudi Arabia among all adult patients aged ≥ 18 years who were admitted as confirmed cases of COVID-19. A data collection sheet was utilized including patients’ demographic data, presenting symptom(s) and their severity, vaccination status, and a history of recent contact with any confirmed case.
Results: A total of 300 patients with confirmed COVID-19 were included. Their age ranged from 18 and 85 years. Equally were distributed between males and females. History of travel in the last 14 days was mentioned by 9.7% of them while 71.3% reported contact with confirmed cases. Cough was the commonest reported symptom (49.3%), followed by fever (44%), headache (36.7%), sore throat (28.7%), and running nose (22%). Regarding vaccinated cases, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine ranked first (66%), followed by the AstraZeneca Oxford vaccine (23.9%) and both vaccines (8.1%). Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that patients who received a second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech or AstraZeneca Oxford vaccines were at lower risk for developing moderate/severe symptoms than those who received one dose, p=0.001 and 0.008; respectively.
Conclusion: Most cases of confirmed COVID-19 infection were mild. The vast majority of the participants had received the COVID-19 vaccine. Of them, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine ranked first, followed by the AstraZeneca Oxford vaccine and both vaccines. Patients who received a second dose of either AstraZeneca Oxford or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines were at lower risk for developing moderate/severe symptoms than those who received one dose..
Keywords: COVID-19, Confirmed cases, Vaccines, Presenting symptoms, Severity
