Characteristics of hospitalized COVID-19 patients and parameters associated with severe pneumonia

Objectives: The aim of this study is to analyse characteristics of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Turkey. Methods: Hospitalized COVID-19 patients with positive naso-oropharyngeal swab examples from 10 different centers were included. Demographics, admission symptoms, laboratory and radiological findings were recorded retrospectively. Results: Of 1013 patients included in the study, there were 583 male (57.6%) and 430 female (42.4%), with the mean age of 53.7±17.9. More than half (%51.7) of the patients had at least one comorbid disease; the most common ones were hypertension and diabetes mellitus. Cough (59.8%), fatigue (49.5%) and fever (41.2%) were the most common presenting symptoms. There was pneumonia in 84.9% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients; 83.5% had typical radiological COVID-19 appearance (94.5%: ground glass areas). The most common laboratory findings were high CRP (73.6%) and lactat dehydrogenase (LDH) (46.2%) levels and lymphopenia (30.1%). Severe pneumonia was present in 28.1% of COVID-19 patients. Multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that high age, hypotension, anemia, elevated serum levels of CRP and LDH were independent risk factors for severity of COVID-19 pneumonia (p=0.011, 0.006, 0.017, 0.003 and 0.001, respectively). Conclusion: Our study, which is one of the first multicenter studies about COVID-19 characteristics in Turkey, is thought to be a guide for COVID-19 patients in terms of clinical features . Age, blood pressure measurement, complete blood count and routine biochemical tests (including CRP and LDH) seem to be important parameters for evaluating the severity of pneumonia in COVID-19 patients.