Gastroenterologists Reveal More Digestive Symptoms in COVID-19 Patients than Nongastroenterologists in Fever Clinic

الملخص EN

The incidence of digestive symptoms may vary depending on doctors’ professional backgrounds when they inquired suspected COVID-19 patients in a fever clinic.

We sought to understand the characteristics of inquiries about digestive symptoms by doctors in different specialties; therefore, inquiry records of 2 gastroenterologists and 6 nongastroenterologists were reviewed.

We compared the difference in inquiry of digestive symptoms (diarrhea, vomit, distension, anorexia, and abdominal pain) between these two groups among identified COVID-19 patients.

And we further compared the difference of digestive symptoms between confirmed patients and suspected cases who excluded from COVID-19.

Among 495 confirmed COVID-19 cases (254 cases by gastroenterologists and 241 cases by nongastroenterologists), 22.83% patients experienced various digestive symptoms in the gastroenterologists’ group, while only 4.47% reported digestive symptoms by nongastroenterologists (p<0.0001).

Additionally, among initially suspected 611 patients who presented with similar respiratory symptoms inquired by gastroenterologists, confirmed cases presented far more frequency of digestive symptoms than excluded cases (22.8% vs.

3.64%, p<0.0001).

Furthermore, confirmed patients reported more percentage of watery diarrhea (56% vs.

36%, p<0.0001) and higher frequent vomit (2.77±0.97 vs.

1.80±0.45 per day, p=0.041) than excluded cases.

We concluded that gastroenterologists could detect a greater proportion of gastrointestinal symptoms in COVID-19 patients during fever clinic inquiries.

Moreover, confirmed COVID-19 patients are more likely to have higher severity in digestive symptoms than excluded cases.

Therefore, physicians in fever clinic should pay more attention to the triage of gastrointestinal symptoms.