Association between comorbid conditions and disease severity in COVID-19 patients: A retrospective study from a government medical college hospital of Central India.

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a major global health challenge, with emerging evidence showing worse outcomes among patients with pre- existing comorbidities. Therefore, it is of interest to examine the association between comorbidity status and disease severity among 384 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 patients admitted to a government medical college in Central India. Patients were divided into comorbid(n=192) and non-comorbid (n=192) groups, with hypertension (69.27%), diabetes mellitus (36.98%) and cardiac disease (13.54%) being most prevalent. Fever (67.45%), cough (55.47%) and shortness of breath (36.20%) were predominant symptoms, while severe illness occurred in 29.69% of comorbid versus 11.46% of non-comorbid patients (x2=24.83, p<0.00001). Thus, we show that hypertension and diabetes markedly increase COVID-19 severity, emphasizing prioritized care and aggressive management of high-risk populations.