Characteristics and Outcomes of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Infection among Children Admitted in Al-Imam Abdulrahman Al Faisal Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Background: At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, some reports demonstrated
that children are at lower risk of infection. Though, with the growing
transmission of the virus, it has been illustrated that it can infectchildren. Nevertheless, the
features and outcomes of COVID-19 infection in childrenare stillunclear. Objective: This study aims to describe the clinical
characters and outcomes of children infected with COVID-19 and admitted to a
hospital in Saudi Arabia. Design and Setting: This is a retrospective study that was carried out in Imam Abdulrahman Al
Faisal Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, by collecting data from
patients’ records
of children who were admitted to the hospital from March to July 2020. The
collected data included information on the age and gender of the children, as
well as their clinical course during hospitalization.Results: Thirty-three patients were
included; 39.4% of the children aged less than one year, 51.5% were males.
Asthma occurred in 15.2% of patients. Asthma (p-value=0.035),
and chronic lung disease (p-value=0.046)
were the most significantly occurring comorbidities. Also, 72.7% of the
children were admitted to the ward, while only 3%
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