• Mohammed Badedi, Abdulrahman Muhajir, Awaji Alnami, Hussain Darraj, Aymn Alamoudi, Yasir Agdi, Ahoud Mujayri, and Atif Ageeb.
• General Directorate of Health Affairs, Jazan, Saudi Arabia.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2022 May 6; 101 (18): e29215e29215.

BackgroundThe objectives of the current study were to assess the severity and clinical characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among Saudi adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in Jazan region, Saudi Arabia.MethodsThis retrospective cohort study included 412 patients with COVID-19 selected randomly from the Health Electronic Surveillance Network system, which contains the primary data on COVID-19 infections in Jazan.ResultsCOVID-19 disease duration was significantly longer in patients with T2DM (mean = 10.7 days) compared with those without T2DM (mean = 8.3 days) (P = .01). Six (7%) patients experienced an increase in blood glucose concentrations and had to escalate their total daily insulin dose accordingly. Median fasting and random blood glucose levels increased after infection with COVID-19 (pre-COVID median = 119 and 172 mg/dL, respectively; post-COVID median = 148 and 216 mg/dL, respectively) (P = .02). The total insulin dose pre-COVID (median = 42 units/d) increased after infection with COVID-19 (median = 58 units/d) (P = .01). Most patients with T2DM had clinical COVID-19 symptoms (91%) and the remainder (9%) were asymptomatic. A large proportion (80%) of T2DM patients with mild COVID-19 symptoms self-isolated at home. COVID-19 patients with T2DM (11%) who had an oxygen saturation of ≤ 90% and admitted to the intensive care unit were higher than those without T2DM (5%) (P =  < .001). COVID-19 patients with T2DM (9%) had higher mortality rate than COVID-19 patients without T2DM (1%) (P =  < .001).ConclusionCOVID-19 patients with T2DM were associated with a higher risk of admission to the intensive care unit and mortality than COVID-19 patients without T2DM.Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

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