A study of clinical profile, sequelae of COVID, and satisfaction of inpatient care at a government COVID care hospital in Karnataka.

BACKGROUND

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus has increased the morbidity and mortality across the world. The most common symptoms are fever, dry cough, tiredness, and the least common symptoms are aches and pains, sore throat, diarrhoea, conjunctivitis, headache and loss of taste or smell. In this current pandemic, the number of COVID-19 survivors being discharged from the hospital is increasing day by day and the long-term effect among the survivors is also increasing. Fatigue and dyspnea were the most reported Post COVID symptoms. The presence of these symptoms is also known as "Long COVID". COVID-19 disease has not only affected the physical health but also the mental health of the patients which also had led to decrease in their quality of life.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted among 35 patients who were admitted in District hospital in Mysuru during the month of October 2020. Purposive Sampling was adopted for selecting the patients. Data was collected through telephone after their discharge. Data were entered in Microsoft Excel sheet and analysed using SPSS trial version 23. Descriptive statistics such as percentages and proportions were calculated. To see the association between the variables, Chi-square test, Fischer's exact test was used. P < 0.05 was taken as statistically significant.

RESULTS

The mean age of the study participants was 49.1 years. Majority of them had fever (68.6%) followed by Myalgia (65.7%), cough (60%), fatigue (42.9%), headache (37.1%) Majority of the patients had no symptoms after discharge (65.7%). After being discharged from the hospital, 22.9% of patients had difficulty in sleeping, 17.1% had loss of taste/smell and fatigue, 8.6% of them had breathlessness and 5.7% of the patients had a change in voice and loss of appetite.

CONCLUSION

With the increasing number of cases across the world, we will most likely face an ongoing wave of COVID-19 sequelae. To Prevent this, an extensive rehabilitation program is necessary for patients during hospitalization and after discharge.