Association of COVID-19 infection severity with vaccination and diet: a comparative cross-sectional study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20221214Keywords:
Association, COVID-19, Severity, Vaccination, DietAbstract
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically affected the socio-economic lives of people around the globe. Along with preventive measures like wearing mask, social distancing, practicing hand hygiene and staying home, the two main immunomodulatory strategies are vaccination and healthy diet intake. Our study was aimed to determine the inter-relationship between COVID-19 severity and vaccination status and between COVID-19 severity and diet.
Methods: This comparative cross-sectional study was performed among 183 COVID-19 patients from July 2021 to December 2021 in a COVID-19 dedicated hospital of Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The convenient sampling was used to select the participants. Self-designed proforma with high reliability (Cronbach alpha value= 0.790) was used for the collection of data. Descriptive and inferential statistics were applied for the evaluation of study variables. Chi-square test was utilized to check the correlation between vaccination and COVID-19 and between diet and COVID-19.
Results: Out of 183 participants 95 (51.91%) were vaccinated while 88 (48.09%) were un-vaccinated. Depending upon the guideline for COVID-19 infection severity provided by Government of Pakistan, 95 (51.92%) patients had asymptomatic infection, 72 (39.34%) patients had non-severe infection, 11 (6.00%) patients had severe infection, and 5 (2.74%) patients had critical infection. The association between vaccination and COVID-19 infection was statistically significant (p value 0.004). The correlation between COVID-19 infection severity and various diet types was also significant with plant-based diet (p=0.0001), animal-based diet (p=0.002), fast food (p=0.01), and micronutrients (p=0.0003).
Conclusions: In short, our study suggests that COVID-19 infection was less severe among vaccinated patients in comparison to non-vaccinated patients. Furthermore, it also showed that high intake of plant-based diet and micronutrients was protective against COVID-19 infection whereas high intake of animal-based diet and fast food was associated with more severe COVID-19 infection.
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