Distinguishing between COVID-19 and the common cold in a primary care setting - comparison of patients with positive and negative SARS-CoV-2 PCR results
Abstract
Background
Combating the COVID-19 pandemic is a major challenge for health systems, citizens and policy makers worldwide. Early detection of affected patients within the large and heterogeneous group of patients with common cold symptoms is an important element of this effort, but often hindered by limited testing resources and the lack of pathognomonic symptoms in COVID-19. Therefore, we aimed to identify predictive risk factors for a positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR (CovPCR) result in a primary care setting.
Method
We performed a multi-center cross-sectional cohort study on predictive clinical characteristics for a positive CovPCR over a period of 4 weeks in primary care patients in Germany.
Findings
In total, 374 patients in 14 primary care centers received CovPCR and were included in this analysis. The median age was 44.0 (IQR: 31.0-59.0) and a fraction of 10.7% (n=40) tested positive for COVID-19. Patients who reported anosmia had a higher odds ratio (OR: 4.54; 95%-CI: 1.51-13.67) for a positive test result while patients with a sore throat had a lower OR (OR: 0.33; 95%-CI: 0.11-0.97). Patients who had a first grade contact with an infected persons and showed symptoms themselves also had an increased OR for positive testing (OR: 5.16; 95% CI: 1.72-15.51). This correlation was also present when they themselves were still asymptomatic (OR: 12.55; 95% CI: 3.97-39.67).
Conclusions
Several anamnestic criteria may be helpful to assess pre-test probability of COVID-19 in patients with common cold symptoms
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