Clinical Characteristics of Patients with COVID-19 in a Primary Care Center in Tijuana, Mexico

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 is caused by a new Coronavirus, which causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The most at-risk population is those over 75 years and with pathologies such as obesity, diabetes mellitus, arterial hypertension, smoking, cardiovascular diseases and asthma, this condition increases the risk of death up to five times. Objective: To describe the clinical characteristics of patients with COVID-19 in the Family Medicine Unit #27 of Tijuana, Mexico. Methods: A review of the database of epidemiological studies of the FMU 27 was carried out between April to June 2020. The clinical characteristics recollected were: age, fever, cough, headache, dyspnea, arthralgia, myalgia, odynophagia, rhinorrhea, conjunctivitis, chest pain, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, obesity, smoking, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Asthma and chronic kidney failure. Descriptive statistics were used, the qualitative variables were expressed in frequencies and percentages, and the quantitative variables in measures of central tendency and dispersion, the information obtained was analyzed in the statistical program SPSS version 25. Results: 111 patients were analyzed, the following clinical characteristics were found: headache 102 (91.9%), fever 97 (87.4%), myalgia 93 (83.8%) and cough 90 (80.1%). The most frequent comorbidity was obesity (24.3%). Conclusions: It is important to know all the COVID-19 clinical characteristics. The knowledge of this characteristics allows us identify the disease and complications early.