Patterns of Otorhinolaryngological Manifestations of Covid-19: A Longitudinal Questionnaire-Based Prospective Study in a Tertiary Hospital in Saudi Arabia.

OBJECTIVE

Many studied investigated the manifestations of COVID-19, yet few described the pattern and severity of otolaryngological symptoms. We aim to describe the picture of COVID-19-associated otorhinolaryngological manifestations and recovery to explore individualized treatment, onward referral, and complications prevention.

DESIGN

Prospective longitudinal questionnaire-based study.

SETTING

The online questionnaire was filled 3 times through a remote interview over a period of 1 month from June 2020 to July 2020.

PARTICIPANTS

Patients with confirmed COVID-19 by RT-PCR who were clinically stable.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Date of diagnosis, sociodemographic data, and the presence of predictive factors, such as nasal and paranasal disease, anosmia and dysgeusia. Validated tools were used, such as Sino-nasal Outcome Test (SNOT-22), smell test (medical academy screening tool), Voice Handicap Index (VHI), and Reflux Symptoms Index (RSI).

RESULT

The questionnaire was sent to 363 patients and the response rate was 70.80% (n = 257). The mean age was 34.58 years (SD = 11.22) and the rate of male participants was 60.7%. The most common otorhinolaryngological symptoms at the time of enrollment was fever (48.6%), whilst the commonest severe symptom was cough (57%). After 1 month, only 11 participants had persistent severe symptoms, especially sleep and psychological symptoms (73%), and the majority were female (63.6%). All of them had at least 1 comorbidity. There was a significant difference between the mean age of participants with severe symptoms (mean = 27.45, SD = 8.39) and without severe symptoms (mean = 34.90, SD = 2.53, (255) = 2.17,  = .031).

CONCLUSION

COVID-19 has a wide-ranged spectrum of presentations, with otorhinolaryngological symptoms being the commonest and most serious. Studying these symptoms is vital to advance management options.