Abstract
Background: At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, some reports demonstrated that children are at lower risk of infection. Though, with the growing transmission of the virus, it has been illustrated that it can infect children. Nevertheless, the features and outcomes of COVID-19 infection in children are still unclear. Objective: This study aims to describe the clinical characters and outcomes of children infected with COVID-19 and admitted to a hospital in Saudi Arabia. Design and Setting: This is a retrospective study that was carried out in Imam Abdulrahman Al Faisal Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, by collecting data from patients’ records of children who were admitted to the hospital from March to July 2020. The collected data included information on the age and gender of the children, as well as their clinical course during hospitalization. Results: Thirty-three patients were included; 39.4% of the children aged less than one year, 51.5% were males. Asthma occurred in 15.2% of patients. Asthma (p-value = 0.035), and chronic lung disease (p-value = 0.046) were the most significantly occurring comorbidities. Also, 72.7% of the children were admitted to the ward, while only 3% required a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and children care unit (PICU). The most prevalent manifestation was fever in 45.5%. Fever (p-value = 0.024), cough and headache among children more than six years (p-value 0.001), and gastrointestinal symptoms (p-value = 0.038) were the most significant symptoms. Temperature > 38 (p-value = 0.043), oxygen saturation 94% (p-value = 0.021), low systolic blood pressure and high heart rate (p-value 0.001) were the most common vital signs abnormalities. Of the whole patients, 3% showed abnormal radiographic investigation. The mean length of hospital stay was 8.9 ± 4.2 days, no in-hospital COVID-19 related mortality was reported. Conclusion: The prognosis of children with COVID-19 who are hospitalized was relatively good, with no in-hospital COVID-19 related mortality identified. A larger study is needed to confirm the outcomes of the present study.
Highlights
This study aims to describe the clinical characters and outcomes of children infected with COVID-19 and admitted to a hospital in Saudi Arabia
Since the early identification of COVID-19 infection in an adult patient in Wuhan city, China, the most serious concern was with the acute respiratory distress syndrome caused by the infection [1], severe respiratory manifestations were the predominant reason for hospitalization and the need for more invasive interventions, up to invasive mechanical ventilation [2]
This is a retrospective study that included children who were admitted to Al-Imam Abdurrahman Al Faisal, first health cluster, ministry of health, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Summary
Since the early identification of COVID-19 infection in an adult patient in Wuhan city, China, the most serious concern was with the acute respiratory distress syndrome caused by the infection [1], severe respiratory manifestations were the predominant reason for hospitalization and the need for more invasive interventions, up to invasive mechanical ventilation [2]. The clinical features in children were almost similar to adults in terms of the presence of respiratory symptoms and gastrointestinal symptoms [6]. There are scarce data on the COVID-19 infection features in children. Only 5% of the symptomatic children showed significant symptoms of respiratory distress such as dyspnea and hypoxemia. This percentage is considerably lower than that identified in adults [8]. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, some reports demonstrated that children are at lower risk of infection. The features and outcomes of COVID-19 infection in children are still unclear. Objective: This study aims to describe the clinical characters and outcomes of children infected with COVID-19 and admitted to a hospital in Saudi Arabia. A larger study is needed to confirm the outcomes of the present study
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