Digestive symptoms are common in COVID-19 patients, study reveals

Reviewed by James Ives, M.Psych. (Editor)Mar 19 2020

The American Journal of Gastroenterology published today a new study that reveals digestive symptoms, including diarrhea, are common in COVID-19 patients. The study comes from the Wuhan Medical Treatment Expert Group for COVID-19 in China.

Nearly half of COVID-19 patients enrolled in the study conducted in the Hubei province of China presented digestive symptoms, such as diarrhea and anorexia, and cited it as their chief complaint. The study also reveals that patients with digestive symptoms had a longer gap between the onset of symptoms and hospital admission than patients presenting only respiratory symptoms and were less likely to be cured and discharged than those without digestive symptoms.

The authors recommend that "the index of suspicion may need to be raised earlier in at-risk patients presenting with digestive symptoms rather than waiting for respiratory symptoms to emerge."