Clinical characteristics and risk factors of patients with severe COVID-19 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: A retrospective study

Background: COVID-19 is newly emerging infectious disease that spread globally at unpredictable and unique pattern to the extent that the World Health Organization announced COVID-19 as a pandemic in the first couple months of 2020. This study aims to describe clinical and demographic features of COVID-19 patients and the influence of various risk factors on the severity of disease. Methods: This research is a retrospective study based on Saudi Arabia's ministry of health's Covid-19 data. The analysis relies on data of all COVID-19 patients recorded in Riyadh between 1st, March 2020 and 30th, July 2020. Statistical analyses were performed to investigate the effect of demographic characteristic, clinical presentation, and comorbidities on infection severity. Results: A total number of 1026 COVID-19 patients were identified based on the demographic data as follows: 709 cases (69% of cases) were males and 559 cases (54% of cases) were Saudi. Most of patients were diagnosed with mild signs and symptoms 697 (68% of cases), while 164 patient (16% of cases) demonstrated moderate signs and symptoms, and 103 cases (10%) were severe and 62 (6%) had critical febrile illness. Fever, cough, sore throat, and shortness of breath were the most common symptoms among patients with COVID-19. Among studied comorbidities in COVID-19 patients, diabetes mellitus and hypertension were the most prevalent. The results from the bivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that older age, diabetes mellitus, asthma, smoking, and fever are associated with severe or critically ill cases. Conclusion: The findings of this study show that old age, fever, and comorbidities involving diabetes mellitus, asthma, and smoking were significantly associated with infection severity.