Simple Symptom-Based Prediction of COVID-19: A Single-Center Study of Outpatient Fever Clinic in Japan

• Published in: Curēus (Palo Alto, CA) CA), 2023-03, Vol.15 (3), p.e36614-e36614
• Main Authors: Inaba, Shinji, Nakao, Yasuhisa, Ikeda, Shuntaro, Mizumoto, Yuki, Utsunomiya, Takeshi, Honjo, Masahiko, Takada, Yasutsugu, Nogami, Naoyuki, Ishii, Eiichi, Yamaguchi, Osamu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Asymptomatic; Confidence intervals; Constipation; Coronaviruses; COVID-19 vaccines; Diarrhea; Fever; Immunization; Infectious Disease; Internal Medicine; Medical diagnosis; Multivariate analysis; Nausea; Nose; Olfaction disorders; Patients; Regression analysis; Risk exposure; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Taste disorders; Vomiting
• ISSN: 2168-8184; 2168-8184
• DOI: 10.7759/cureus.36614

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) symptoms are not fully understood in non-hospitalized individuals in Japan, and COVID-19 differentiation by symptoms alone remained challenging. Therefore, this study aimed to examine COVID-19 prediction from symptoms using real-world data in an outpatient fever clinic. We compared the symptoms of COVID-19-positive and negative patients who visited the outpatient fever clinic at Imabari City Medical Association General Hospital and tested for COVID-19 from April 2021 to May 2022. This retrospective single-center study enrolled 2,693 consecutive patients. COVID-19-positive patients had a higher frequency of close contact with COVID-19-infected patients compared with COVID-19-negative patients. Moreover, patients with COVID-19 had high-grade fever at the clinic compared with patients without COVID-19. Additionally, the most common symptom in patients with COVID-19 was sore throat (67.3%), followed by cough (62.0%), which was approximately twice as common in patients without COVID-19. COVID-19 was more frequently identified in patients having a fever (≥37.5℃) with a sore throat, a cough, or both. The positive COVID-19 rate reached approximately half (45%) when three symptoms were present. These results suggested that COVID-19 prediction by combinations of simple symptoms and close contact with COVID-19-infected patients might be useful and lead to recommendations for testing of COVID-19 in symptomatic individuals.