Characteristics of participants
A total of 578 COVID-19 patients were contacted; of these, 405 adult patients consented to participation and 173 patients were excluded. Reasons for exclusion were: 54 had missing contact details, 45 had invalid contact numbers, 27 did not respond to phone calls, 20 refused to participate, 26 due to language barriers, and 1 person died. Out of 405 participants, 220 were males (54.3%) and 185 were females (45.8%). The mean age of participants was 38.2 years ± 11.3 years. (median age: 36 years). The majority of patients were Bahrainis (n=270, 66.7%). The non-Bahrainis were from South Asia (n=104, 25.7%), East Asia (n= 13, 3.2%), Arabic countries outside the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) (n=11, 2.7%), the GCC (n=5, 1.2%), and from other nationalities (n=2, 0.5%). Seventy-eight percent of the participants were married (n=309), 19.4% were single (n=77), 2% were divorced (n=8), and 0.5% were widowed (n=2). Further, 56.2% of participants had received COVID vaccines (n=223), while 43.8% were not vaccinated (n=174) [Table 1]
Close contact with COVID positive individuals was reported by 67.4% of the participants (n=273). Twenty percent of participants were smokers (n=81). Other comorbidities were sinusitis or allergies (15.3%), diabetes mellitus (13.1%), hypertension (12.8%), and chronic respiratory conditions (3.5%). [Table 1]