Clinical Profile of Hospitalized patients died of COVID 19 – A Retrospective Study in Puducherry

ABSTRACT:

Background: WHO declared COVID 19 as Pandemic in March 11, 2020. Since then, COVID 19 has become an unavoidable burden to entire health system. Both the pattern of disease and the risk factors are highly variable person to person. Objectives: 1. To assess the clinical profile of hospitalized patients died of COVID 19 infection  between April 2021 to June 2021 2. To determine the association between Age and Gender with the immediate cause of death in the COVID 19 infected patients. Methods: This Retrospective Observational Study was carried out among the deceased Hospitalized COVID 19 patients admitted between April-June 2021 at Sri Ventkateshwaraa Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Puducherry. The data were collected from the case records of the patients, 119 of the records became eligible to be taken in the study based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. Selected socio demographic parameters, symptom profile on admission, category of COVID 19 based on severity, presence of co-morbidity, immediate cause of death were noted from the records. Discrete variables were expressed in proportion, continuous variables were expressed in mean ± SD. Chi-square test was used to determine the significance of association, p value < 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Among the 119 patient records eligible for the study, majority of them were aged above 50 years, 87(73%) and most of them were males, 81(68%). Most of them had cough followed by breathing difficulty as the presenting complaint and Diabetes mellitus as the common co-morbidity. On determining the immediate cause of death, it was noted that, nearly half of them had died due to ARDS (47%) followed by Septic shock. Proportion of females and younger age group died of respiratory failure was more compared to other causes , however this was not statistically significant having a p value of >0.05. Conclusion: The present study concluded the common presenting complaint to be the cough and there is gender and age disparity contributing to the immediate cause of death. Younger population seem to be more affected with respiratory failure than the older age group, which is a matter of concern.

Key words: Clinical profile, COVID 19, Hospitalised patients