Determinate the Severity of Illness and it is Correlation with Sociodemographic and Clinical Data among Patients with COVID-19

Abstract

Background:
Coronavirus has emerged as a pandemic threat globally, the COVID-19 severity was
categorized as mild, moderate, severe, and critical based on the diagnostic and treatment plan for
novel coronavirus pneumonia. Several factors have been related to COVID-19 infection and severity.
This study was designed to determine the severity of the illness and its correlation with sociodemographic,
and clinical data among patients with COVID-19.
Methods: A descriptive correlational study design was conducted at Imam Hussein Medical City, in
order to determine the illness severity and its correlation with socio-demographic and clinical data
among patients with COVID-19. The study was begun from October 2021 to July 2022. A 244
COVID-19 patients were involved in this study. The study tool included two main sections: the first
section contains participants’ socio-demographic and clinical data; the second section contains the
severity index of COVID-19, this scale includes seventeen items with a rating scale from 0 to 3, the
response is the sum of the points for the case as follows: 0-2=low, 3-5=moderate, 6-7=high,
≥8=critical. Both descriptive and inferential statistical procedures were used to determine the
relationship between variables.
Results: A 51.6% of patients within the age group of ˃60 years old with an MS±SD of 57.06 ± 19.2,
52.9% are males, 48.4% complained of critical conditions, 24.6% and 23.0% of them had high and
moderate levels of illness severity respectively. A highly significant relationship was found between
the severity of illness with patients’ socio-demographic characteristics and clinical data involving
age, gender, levels of education, marital condition, smoking status, type of vaccination, and patients
with chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney disease, ischemic heart
disease, and heart failure at p ≤ 0.01.
Conclusion: The study concludes that the majority of participants were elderly, had low levels of
education, most of the participants complained of critical conditions, and about one-quarter of them
had high and moderate levels of illness severity respectively. A highly significant relationship
between the severity of illness with patients’ socio-demographic and clinical data involving age,
gender, levels of education, marital condition, smoking status, type of vaccination, and patients with
chronic diseases such as hypertension, and diabetes mellitus.