COVID-19 Symptomatology from the Otorhinolaryngology Perspective: Survey from Tertiary Care Center

Abstract

Introduction
 To identify and substantiate the prevalence and severity of different otolaryngological symptoms documented in laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 patients.
 Materials and Methods
 This monocentric study was performed at SHKM Hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic and all patients testing positive for COVID-19 over a 16-month period (April 2020 to July 2021) were recruited. Demographic features, general symptoms, and otolaryngological symptoms were evaluated and compared by disease severity. Patients with otolaryngological manifestations were asked to complete questionnaires and their symptom severity was evaluated using visual analogue scale (VAS).
 Results
 722 patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 infection were included in the study. Median age was 37.7 ± 10.6 years (range 19–85 years), 66.20% (n = 478) were males and 33.79% (n = 244) were females. The most common general symptoms were fever, cough and fatigue/malaise with respective frequencies of 77.42%, 67.45% and 54.70%. The most common otorhinolaryngologic symptoms were sore throat, headache and olfactory dysfunction with respective frequencies of 19.52%, 17.03% and 14.81%. Highest general symptom severity was for fever (median VAS =8) and highest otolaryngologic symptom severity was for hyposmia/anosmia (median VAS =8).
 Conclusion
 Otolaryngologic manifestations of COVID-19 are not as common as fever and cough. However early recognition of otolaryngologic manifestations should help to screen, identify and thereby quickly isolate symptomatic COVID-19 patients from the general population and also facilitate care givers to take necessary precautions to protect themselves.