Gastrointestinal tract symptoms in coronavirus disease 2019: Analysis of clinical symptoms in adult patients

  1. Yong Zhang
  2. Zuneng Lu
  3. Bo Wang
  4. Jinxing Cang
  5. Yonggang Ma

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Abstract

Objective

To investigate the clinical presentation of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), particularly the incidence of gastrointestinal tract symptoms.

Design

We enrolled adult COVID-19 patients from a mobile cabin hospital in Wuhan with a definitive diagnosis by SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid testing. Face-to-face interviews were conducted in which the patient selected COVID-19-related symptoms and report the time of onset and duration of symptoms.

Results

A total of 212 adults were enrolled in this study, of which 127 (59.9%) were females, mean age was 48.50 ±13.15 (range: 17-79) years, and mean disease course was 26.78±9.16 (3-60) days. Fever and cough were the most common and earliest clinical symptoms of COVID-19.

Diarrhoea occurred in 43.8% (93/212) of patients, of which 86.0% (80/93) had mushy stools. Nausea and vomiting were also common (20.7%). Diarrhoea lasted for 4.00(2.00-8.85) days and mostly occurred 5.00(0.25-11.00) days after the emergence of the first symptoms. Multiple logistic regression analysis found that diarrhoea was significantly correlated with fatigue [OR2.900,95%CI (1.629-5.164), p<0.0001].

Conclusions

Gastrointestinal tract symptoms are common in COVID-19 and most occur during the middle stage of the disease and lasts for a short period of time. Clinicians need to pay greater attention to gastrointestinal tract symptoms of COVID-19.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.03.23.20040279: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Ethical considerations: This study was reviewed by the ethics committee of Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University (Ethics Approval No.: WDRY2020-K033) and written informed consent from patients was waived.
    Consent: Only verbal explanation was required, and verbal informed consent was obtained from the patients.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Data analysis: SPSS 26.0 software was used for statistical analysis.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.03.23.20040279v1 on medRxiv