Mode of Presentation and Outcomes of COVID-19 Cases in a Tertiary Hospital in Nigeria

  1. Yakubu Egigogo Raji
  2. Bala Waziri
  3. Sadiq Aliyu Hussaini
  4. Ahmad Idris Ja’agi
  5. Umar Isah Alhaji
  6. Abdulmalik M. Aliyu
  7. Abdullahi Muhammad
  8. Adama Saidu Garba

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Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread across the globe with its consequent human and economic challenges. To achieve effective control of the pandemic, efforts need to be holistic and global. Understanding patients’ demographics and clinical characteristics will assist in the control of the infection. However, there is a paucity of studies on the clinical presentation of COVID-19 patients from Nigeria and indeed Africa. Thus, this retrospective case series evaluated the medical records of COVID-19 patients admitted in a tertiary hospital in Nigeria. Patients’ demographics, and other clinical variables were assessed and presented. Data of 14 patients with complete records were included in the study. Most of the patients (78.6%) were males and the mean age of the study participants is 63.5 years (SD; 11.5). The commonest presenting symptoms were fever (93%), cough (71.4%), and dyspnoea (57.1%). At presentation, 13 patients had coexisting diseases while 8 (57.0%) patients had moderate disease and the remaining 6 (43.0%) had severe cases. After management, 1 patient died, two were referred and 11 recovered and were discharged alive. Thus, this study has identified advanced age, male gender, and comorbidity as increased risk factors for hospitalisation. The patient survival outcome in this study was also good.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.07.06.21260084: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    However, the study is not without limitations. The study is limited in the number of included patients. Since only one hospital was considered and only hospitalised patients with complete medical records were included. Additionally, information on mild and asymptomatic confirmed cases was not evaluated. Therefore, more multicentred studies that will evaluate the entire spectrum of the disease severity are required to address these challenges. In conclusion, this study has provided evidence that as in other regions of the world, advanced age, male gender, and comorbidities are factors that increase the risk of hospitalisation in COVID-19 patients. Also, patients presenting symptoms, duration of symptoms onset to admission, and length of hospitalisation of Nigerian patients are like those reported from across the world. However, disease severity and survival outcome of patients from this study are better when compared to similar studies from Europe and some parts of the world.

    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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    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 10.1101/2021.07.06.21260084v1 on medRxiv