Prevalencia de la COVID-19 en pacientes que acudieron al Hospital Luis F. Martínez del Cantón Cañar durante el periodo abril 2020- febrero 2022

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 is the infection that causes inflammatory mechanisms that lead to clinical deterioration in patients. It is accompanied by alterations at the respiratory level where its causative agent is the SARS CoV-2 virus that mutates its proteins to adhere to the host and develop the disease with mild or even severe symptoms that can lead to multi-organ failure and death. General Objective: To determine the prevalence of COVID-19 in patients who attended the "Luis F Martínez Hospital" in Canton Cañar during the period of April 2020- February 2022. Methodology: The research was observational, descriptive and cross-sectional with a sample of 359 people, obtained by probabilistic and random sampling. A database was made in Excel 2019 whose information was executed using the statistical program SPSS version 27 and presented in statistical tables. According to the percentage and absolute value, the association was made using the Chi2 statistic. Results: The prevalence found was 50.7%, the predominant age group was 25 - 36 years with 29.2%; 52.9% correspond to the female sex; 41.5% of the patients tested positive by RT-PCR test; 32.3% had comorbidity, highlighting Hypertension with 13.7% and Diabetes with 7.1%; the symptoms ranged from 3-6 days, where 50% presented cough, 38.5% fever and 34.6% anosmia. Conclusion: COVID-19 affected young adults, mainly women, evidencing a low association with the variables under study and highlighting the usefulness of the RT-PCR test for diagnosis.