Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Chronic disease is a lifelong disorder that necessitates continuing medical care and is more prone to infections such as COVID-19, compared to healthy individuals. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the severity of COVID-19 among chronic disease patients in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. METHODS AND MATERIALS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in selected hospitals in the Riyadh region in Saudi Arabia, over 6 months in 2022. All participants' records were reviewed for socio-demographic data including age, gender, residence, marital status, level of education, occupation, and special habits such as smoking or addiction. In addition to this main complaint and present history, history of chronic illnesses, drug intake, surgical interference, general examination findings including vital signs, state of consciousness, general condition at admission and discharge, and outcome of cases were recorded. RESULTS: The mean age of the patient was 54.46 ± 15.85 (median of 53.67 years). In this study, the severity of COVID-19 was significantly associated with chronic diseases. For instance, 22.31% of the patients with diabetes reported mild symptoms, compared with 77.69% of the patients without diabetes. The current findings reported 2.18% of COVID-19 patients with respiratory diseases and 97.82% of the patients without respiratory diseases reported mild symptoms of COVID-19 infection. In comparison, 97.75% of COVID-19 patients without respiratory diseases and 2.25% of patients with respiratory diseases reported moderately severe COVID-19 infection. CONCLUSION: The current findings revealed that 66.2% of the COVID-19 patients with chronic diseases were free of symptoms, 5.3% of them died and 0.9% of the patients were in a worse situation. The severity of COVID-19 was significantly associated with the presence of chronic diseases. Additionally, medical practitioners must be more knowledgeable about the long-term illnesses that put patients at risk for serious COVID-19 challenges and mortality.