• Daniela Ferreira-Santos, Priscila Maranhão, Matilde Monteiro-Soares, and COVIDcids.
• CINTESIS - Center for Health Technology and Services Research, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal danielasantos@med.up.pt.
• BMJ Open. 2020 Sep 16; 10 (9): e041079.

ObjectivesOur research question was: what are the most frequent baseline clinical characteristics in adult patients with COVID-19? Our major aim was to identify common baseline clinical features that could help recognise adult patients at high risk of having COVID-19.DesignWe conducted a scoping review of all the evidence available at LitCovid, until 23 March 2020.SettingStudies conducted in any setting and any country were included.ParticipantsStudies had to report the prevalence of sociodemographic characteristics, symptoms and comorbidities specifically in adults with a diagnosis of infection by SARS-CoV-2.ResultsIn total, 1572 publications were published on LitCovid. We have included 56 articles in our analysis, with 89% conducted in China and 75% containing inpatients. Three studies were conducted in North America and one in Europe. Participants' age ranged from 28 to 70 years, with balanced gender distribution. The proportion of asymptomatic cases were from 2% to 79%. The most common reported symptoms were fever (4%-99%), cough (4%-92%), dyspnoea/shortness of breath (1%-90%), fatigue (4%-89%), myalgia (3%-65%) and pharyngalgia (2%-61%), while regarding comorbidities, we found cardiovascular disease (1%-40%), hypertension (0%-40%) and cerebrovascular disease (1%-40%). Such heterogeneity impaired the conduction of meta-analysis.ConclusionsThe infection by COVID-19 seems to affect people in a very diverse manner and with different characteristics. With the available data, it is not possible to clearly identify those at higher risk of being infected with this condition. Furthermore, the evidence from countries other than China is, at the moment, too scarce.© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.

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