Clinico-Epidemiological Profiles of COVID-19 Elderly Patients in Guwahati City, Assam, India: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

BackgroundAs of November 14, 2021, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 has affected more than 3,44,00,000 individuals in India and resulted in more than 4,60,000 deaths in India.Symptoms of COVID-19 include cough, fever, dyspnea, diarrhea, fatigue, expectoration, myalgia, hemoptysis, abdominal pain, and anorexia.Associated comorbidities such as hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular illness, and respiratory sicknesses influence the severity and prognosis of the COVID-19. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the factors associated with the severity and outcome of elderly Indian people diagnosed with COVID-19.MethodologyThis hospital-based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among elderly patients with confirmed COVID-19 who were admitted to Gauhati Medical College Hospital from July 21, 2020, to January 15, 2021. The demographic data, exposure history, clinical symptoms and signs, underlying comorbidity, severity of COVID-19, and outcome data of each elderly patient were obtained and analyzed using SPSS software (Version 25.0, IBM Corp., Armonk, NY). The Fisher exact test, chi-square test, and binary logistic regression analysis were used for different study variables.ResultA total of 165 hospitalized COVID-19 elderly patients were included in this study, and their mean age was 68.4 years. The most common symptoms were cough (34.5%), fever (28%), breathing difficulty (22%), weakness (13.1%), and chest pain (3.6%). Those with breathing difficulty (adjusted OR [aOR]: 7.293, 95% CI: 2.229-23.860, p=0.001), loose stool (aOR: 12.142, 95% CI: 1.052-140.209, p=0.045), hypertension (aOR: 2.703, 95% CI: 1.023-7.139, p=0.045), and severity of COVID-19 (aOR: 7.691, 95% CI: 2.870-20.607, P<0.001) had increased risk of poor outcome among the COVID-19 elderly. Being hypertensive (aOR: 2.474, 95% CI: 1.060-5.774, p=0.036) had an increased risk of severity of COVID-19.ConclusionThe most common symptoms of COVID‐19 elderly patients were fever, cough, and breathing difficulty. In elderly COVID-19 patients, hypertension played a crucial role in determining the severity of COVID-19, whereas breathing difficulty, loose stool, hypertension, and moderate-to-severe COVID-19 elderly patients had a poor outcome.