Risk factors of COVID-19 severity among Tunisian patients in the Emergency Department of Sousse, Tunisia.

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: Despite the spread of COVID-19 in Tunisia and its impact on people, health and economy, few studies have investigated the profile of COVID-19 Tunisian patients. AIM: Determine the epidemiological, clinical, para-clinical and therapeutic characteristics patients and identify the associated factors of severity. METHODS: This is a retrospective study, conducted among confirmed COVID-19 patients consulting the hospital emergency department. We collected Data using from the patients' computerized files. We performed Data entry and analysis using SPSS 22. RESULTS: We included 375 patients. The average age was 66.7±11.43 years with a sex ratio of 1.6. The most frequent comorbidities were diabetes (100%), hypertension (64.5%), and chronic heart disease (25.9%). The most frequent clinical signs were dyspnea (75.2%), asthenia (66.9%), cough (66.7%) and fever (60.3%). The most frequent biological abnormalities were biological inflammatory syndrome (96%) and elevation of troponin (69.3%). CT scans revealed lung damage in 34.1% of patients. As for treatments, 91.7% received antibiotics, 89% received corticosteroids, 89.3% received anticoagulants, and 85.1% received ventilation (42.6% non-invasive ventilation and 1.9% were intubated). Risk factors of severity were age, chronic heart disease and hypertension. CONCLUSION: Knowing the particularities of Tunisian patients will help to install recommendations to improve the process of care and prevention.