Clinical features and haematological parameters associated with COVID-19 severity among hospitalized patients: A retrospective observational study from Tribal Central India

BACKGROUND: Reports describing demographics, clinical characteristics, hospital course, morbidity, and mortality in patients in the Indian setting have been published, but they are based on limited numbers of cases. The present study among the patients with known outcomes enabled us to better understand the disease process and progression of COVID-19 cases and to correlate the factors affecting the outcome. METHODS: This was a record-based, retrospective observational study of patients admitted to COVID-19 Hospital. We have retrieved medical records for all the hospitalized patients with a laboratory confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis with a known outcome (discharged or died) between April 1, 2020 and February 28, 2021. The extracted data included basic demographics, signs and symptoms, duration of hospitalization, and laboratory parameters. Categorical variables were analysed using either the chisquare test or Fisher’s exact test. The level of significance was set at P < 0.05. RESULTS: The mean age of severe and moderate patients was 38.71 years, compared to 34.95 years for mild patients. No gender difference was observed for the severe/moderate, and mild cases. The mortality rate among severe/moderate cases was 11.6%, whereas it was 3.9% in mild patients. Laboratory parameters which were significantly (p < 0.05) raised among the dead compared to discharged patients included CT score, D-dimer, CRP, ALT, AST, and alkaline phosphatase. CONCLUSION: Clinical and laboratory characteristics reflect the pathophysiology of disease and thus help clinicians recognise the severity of medical illness. They also facilitate the creation of management protocols for clinical care that results in improvement in patient related outcomes.