Abstract:
Background: Corona virus 2019 (COVID-19) is a pandemic disease which is caused by SARS-Cov-2
and it emerged on December 31, 2019, in China. COVID-19 affects more patients with chronic diseases
mainly diabetes. Those with diabetes were more likely to have serious complications and have delayed
recovery time from the virus. One reason is that high blood sugar weakens the immune system and
makes it less able to fight off infections. The main aim of this study was to model the time to recovery
of diabetic patients from COVID-19 in Eka Kotebe General Hospital.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study design was conducted on diabetic patients with COVID-19
whose age 18 years and above from March 20, 2020, to April 30, 2022 G.C, at Eka Kotebe General
Hospital (EKGH), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Kaplan-Meier estimation method and log-rank tests, were
used to compare the survival experience of different groups and also Cox proportional hazard model
was employed to identify the covariates that have a statistically significant effect on the recovery time
of diabetic patients from COVID-19 with the help of R software’s (R version 4.1.2) to analyze the data.
Results: Out of 481 diabetic patients with COVID-19, 306 (63.62%) were recovered from COVID-19,
with a minimum and maximum recovery times of 5 and 59 days, respectively. The median recovery
time was 16 days with 95% confidence interval (15, 17). The multivariate Cox regression model
analysis showed that patients whose age groups 36-55 (HR ˆ = 0.585, 95% CI: 0.404, 0.848), age groups
> 55 (HR ˆ = 0.663, 95% CI: 0.445, 0.989), female patients (HR ˆ = 1.382, 95% CI: 1.061, 1.8), rural
resident ((HR ˆ = 4.839, 95% CI: 2.82, 8.247), HIV (HR ˆ = 0.067, 95% CI: 0.024, 0.182), hypertension
(HR ˆ = 0.38, 95% CI: 0.255, 0.567), symptom (HR ˆ = 0.514, 95% CI: 0.3, 0.881), asthma (HR ˆ = 0.491,
95% CI: 0.309, 0.78), stroke (HR ˆ = 0.508, 95% CI: 0.333, 0.776), TB (HR ˆ = 0.424, 95% CI: 0.277,
0.65), CLD (HR ˆ = 0.564, 95% CI: 0.356, 0.893), types of diabetes (type 2 diabetes (HR ˆ = 0.159,
95% CI: 0.107, 0.236) & Gestational diabetes (HR ˆ = 41.875, 95% CI: 9.279, 188.976)), and other
co-factors (HR ˆ = 0.531, 95% CI: 0.398, 0.708) were statistically associated with time to recovery of
diabetic patients from COVID-19.
Conclusion & Recommendation: Finally, the findings of this study implied that factors like, age,
sex, residence, HIV, hypertension, asthma, TB, stroke, CLD, and other co-factors were a major
factors related to time to recovery of diabetic patients from COVID-19. Based on study results, it is
recommended that health professionals should be give more attention to diabetic patients with HIV,
hypertension, TB, stroke, asthma, CLD, types of DM, and other co-factors to control COVID-19.
