COVID-19 Clinical Manifestations & Concerns among the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's 937 Health Hotline Callers in Jeddah

The on-going COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted telehealth as a crucial tool in delivering high quality healthcare with increased efficiency. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia this has been evidently clear with the establishment of the robust Ministry of Health 937 COVID-19 hotline. The objectives of our study are to describe the clinical patterns of COVID-19, identify the most common concerns of the 937 hotline callers and to identify the associations between the clinical presentation of COVID-19 and risk factors of the patients. through an Analytic Cross-Sectional study design.

Results: The average age was 36.8 ± 15.7 years, 61.1% were males and 38.9% were females. 69.3% were Saudi and 30.7% were non-Saudis. 82.5% employed, whilst 17.5% were unemployed. The most commonly reported symptoms were fever, followed by fatigue and cough respectively. With 41.8%, 28.2% and 23.2% of participants reporting those symptoms respectively. The most significant predictors of developing shortness of breath due to COVID-19 was chronic lung disease OR=5.7, p value >0.01, chronic kidney disease, OR = 4.8, p value >0.02 and immunocompromised state OR = 19, p value >0.01. 82% of all calls to the hotline were related to COVID-19 testing, and 11% of all calls resulted in the caller receiving medical counselling and/or treatment without having to make a physical visit to a healthcare provider.

Conclusion: A well-designed telehealth program can mitigate the need for a physical visit to the emergency room or clinic and as such reduce the load on front-line healthcare workers, reducing transmission and improving outcomes during infectious disease epidemics. It can also provide valuable insights into the presentation and risk factors of a new disease to aid in the prevention, diagnosis, management and control of the disease.