Misdiagnosis of COVID-19 infection before molecular confirmation in Sulaimaniyah City, Iraq

Table 1 General and clinical characteristics of the studied participants according to types of misdiagnosis before COVID-19 confirmations

	Types of misdiagnosis^a							P-value
	Total	Typhoid	Influenza	Pneumonia	Gastro-enteritis	Common cold	Brucellosis	P-value
Total no.	100	63	14	9	5	4	4
Parameters	N (%) mean (SD)	N (%) mean (SD)	N (%) mean (SD)	N (%) mean (SD)	N (%) mean (SD)	N (%) mean (SD)	N (%) mean (SD)
Age^b	42.34 (15.56)	41.21 (15.5)	44.36 (14.04)	52.56 (11.61)	38.4 (14.69)	43.25 (18.75)	29.25 (20.65)	0.159
Sex
Male	60 (60)	37 (58.7)	7 (50)	7 (77.8)	2 (40)	2 (50)	4 (100)	0.407
Female	40 (40)	26 (41.3)	7 (50)	2 (22.2)	3 (60)	2 (50)	0 (0.0)	0.407
Investigation based on
Typhoid IgM and IgG rapid test	63 (63)	63 (100)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	< 0.001
Rose Bengal	4(4)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	4 (100)
Chest X-ray	5 (5)	0 (0)	0 (0)	5 (55.6)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)
None (clinical presentation)	28 (28)	0 (0)	14 (100)	4 (44.4)	5 (100)	4 (100)	0 (0)
MisDX made by
Non-physician healthcare worker	92 (92)	63 (100)	14 (100)	4 (44.4)	5 (100)	4 (100)	2 (50)	< 0.001
Physician	8 (8)	0 (0)	0 (0)	5 (55.6)	0 (0)	0 (0)	2 (50)	< 0.001
Duration of the mistreatment (days)	5.44 (1.733)	5.63 (1.47)	4.21 (1.12)	6 (2.55)	4.4 (1.67)	5.75 (1.5)	7.25 (2.5)	0.002
Hospitalized	28 (28)	15 (23.8)	4 (28.6)	2 (22.2)	2 (40)	3 (75)	1 (25)	0.236
Died^a	4 (4)	1 (1.6)	2 (14.3)	1 (11.1)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0.361

^aOne patient was diagnosed with meningitis by a physician, its data is not shown in this table
^bDescriptive parameters were shown as mean (SD). All other parameters were categorical variable shown as numbers (percentages)

ISSN: 2047-783X