Journal of AdvancedMedical and Dental Sciences Research

Background: The COVID‐19 pandemic is still rampant in few countries like India where obesity is also prevalent. Obesity has previously been recognized as an independent predisposing factor for severe H1N1, SARS &MERS pulmonary infection and now is also considered an independent factor determining the severity of COVID-19 Infection.This study is aimed at establishing the relationship between severity and outcome of covid 19 patients among obese and non obese individuals among patients admitted in a tertiary referral centre in Tamil Nadu. Aims and Objectives: (1) To compare the severity of COVID-19 infection between obese and non-obese patients. (2) To assess the difference in treatment outcome between obese and non-obese patients. (3) To assess whether the co-existence of other chronic comorbidities influence the severity and outcome of obese COVID-19 patients. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective study among 200 covid 19 positive patients admitted in Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, Chennai between the time period of 15th July to 15th August 2020. Subjects were selected by simple random sampling and classified according to the BMI into various categories as underweight, normal, overweight, obese class I, obese class II and obese class III and followed up for a period of one month. The severity and outcome was assessed based on the clinical parameters, blood parameters such as NLR, CRP, Ferritin, requirement of ventilator support and duration of stay. The data was analysed statistically. Results: 59.5 % of our study population were obese or overweight.There was no significant difference in the clinical severity and outcome among the obese and non obese patients. However among the obese cohort with Diabetes as a co-morbidity there was a significant increase in the severity of illness in terms of duration of stay (p value 0.009) and duration on need for oxygen requirement (p value 0.008) but no significant difference in outcome as compared with diabetic non-obese individuals.