Clinical characteristics of diarrhea in 90 cases with COVID-19: A descriptive study.
Yaru Xiao, Sufang Huang, Li Yan and 5 others
PMID 32827932WHAT IT FOUND
Diarrhea was uncommon as the first sign of COVID-19, but when present it was often watery and frequent, and many patients had low albumin or lymphocyte counts.
Nurses should monitor stool, nutrition, and possible fecal transmission risk.
Key findings
01Among 912 COVID-19 cases, 90 patients (9.87%) had diarrhea, and diarrhea was the initial symptom in 8 patients (9%).
02Stool was watery in 64% and mushy in 28%, and 23 of 63 patients defecated more than three times a day.
03Lymphocyte and albumin counts were below normal in 43% and 46% of patients, respectively.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study was retrospective, and some diarrhea details were missing from records. Not all patients had stool nucleic acid testing, so fecal virus shedding and infectivity were not assessed. It was a descriptive case series without a comparison group, so it cannot show that diarrhea caused or predicted outcomes. Data came from a single hospital during the early pandemic, so generalizability may be limited.
Declared interests
The study was funded by a university special fund for novel coronavirus pneumonia. The authors declared no competing financial interests or personal relationships that could influence the work.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that COVID-19 spreads through feces based on this paper. The study did not test stool for virus in all patients and only describes diarrhea characteristics.