Evaluation of Clinical Manifestations, Laboratory Findings and Outcome of Children with Covid-19

Coronavirus, a common infectious disease in the 21st century, has not been studied enough in children. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the clinical manifestations, laboratory findings, and outcomes of children with Covid-19 admitted to Shahid Beheshti Hospital in Kashan during 2020-2022.

In this retrospective cohort study, the medical records of children with covid-19 referred to Shahid Beheshti hospital in Kashan between February 2020 and March 2022 were reviewed. The information extracted from the patient's medical records included demographic variables, clinical characteristics, laboratory findings, and the outcome of covid-19. The collected data were analyzed through SPSS 16, using descriptive statistics (frequency distribution, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (chi-square test and ANOVA).

The findings of 271 children (159 boys; 52% of the age group≤5 years) showed that fever (57.6%), cough (39.9%), nausea-vomiting (31.7%), and diarrhea were the most common clinical symptoms. Also, the majority of patients were in the abnormal range in terms of Monocyte (89.3%), PTT (84.7%), Lymphocyte (83.6%), Neutrophil (80.4%), and LDH (74.5%). Pulmonary involvement was present in 12.5% of children. Finally, four children (1.5%) died.

Severity of lung involvement and the outcome of the covid-19 disease (admission to the ICU and death) among children were at a low level, and in fact, it shows the better condition of children than adults in relation to this disease.