The Need to pay Attention to Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) in the Diagnosis and Treatment of COVID-19 Disease

Background and Aim: The new Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID19) outbreak initiated from China in late December 2019, has posed a great global health threat. Since patients with high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases are at high risk of COVID19, this study aims to investigate the prevalence, severity, clinical manifestations, and mortality rate in COVID19 patients with underlying diseases compared to those without underlying diseases.Methods Materials: This study was performed on 1408 patients with COVID19 admitted to Golestan, Hajar, Khanevadeh and Besat hospitals in Tehran, Iran. Required data including disease prevalence, severity, clinical manifestations and mortality rate in patients with and without underlying diseases were collected and then analyzed using statistical tests in SPSS software, considering a significance level of P<0.05.Ethical Considerations: This study was approved by the AJA University of Medical Sciences (Code: IR.AJAUMS.REC.1399.091). Ethical principles have been observed in accordance with the guidelines of the National Ethics Committee and the COPE regulations.Results: Patients were 912 men (64.8%) and 496 women (35.2%) aged 1898 years (Mean age= 57.8 years). Results reported that 27% of patients were intubated and 21.9% were died. Blood oxygen level in 53.7% of patients was less than 93 mg/dL; 36.1% had a history of hypertension, 24.1% had a history of diabetes, and 21.7% had a history of cardiovascular disease.Conclusion: The severity, clinical manifestations, and mortality rate of COVID19 patients with cardiovascular disease, diabetes and hypertension are significantly different compared to those without underlying diseases.