Characteristics of participants
A total of 578 COVID-19 patients were contacted; of these, 405 adult
patients consented to participation and 173 patients were excluded.
Reasons for exclusion were: 54 had missing contact details, 45 had
invalid contact numbers, 27 did not respond to phone calls, 20 refused
to participate, 26 due to language barriers, and 1 person died. Out of
405 participants, 220 were males (54.3%) and 185 were females (45.8%).
The mean age of participants was 38.2 years ± 11.3 years. (median age:
36 years). The majority of patients were Bahrainis (n=270, 66.7%). The
non-Bahrainis were from South Asia (n=104, 25.7%), East Asia (n= 13,
3.2%), Arabic countries outside the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
(n=11, 2.7%), the GCC (n=5, 1.2%), and from other nationalities (n=2,
0.5%). Seventy-eight percent of the participants were married (n=309),
19.4% were single (n=77), 2% were divorced (n=8), and 0.5% were
widowed (n=2). Further, 56.2% of participants had received COVID
vaccines (n=223), while 43.8% were not vaccinated (n=174) [Table 1]
Close contact with COVID positive individuals was reported by 67.4% of
the participants (n=273). Twenty percent of participants were smokers
(n=81). Other comorbidities were sinusitis or allergies (15.3%),
diabetes mellitus (13.1%), hypertension (12.8%), and chronic
respiratory conditions (3.5%). [Table 1]