National Survey of Symptoms of People Aged 70 and Overs Diagnosed With COVID-19

This cross-sectional survey was initiated and conducted by the French Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology. A standardized questionnaire was emailed to 1600 geriatrician members of the French Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology throughout France between March 22, 2020 and April 5, 2020. Geriatricians were asked to complete the survey for their last 10 patients infected by the SARS-CoV-2. The study was declared to the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) under the number ar20-0031v1.

For each patient, demographic characteristics (age, gender, residence place, care place, autonomy according to the Groupe Iso Ressource (GIR)), medical history (presence of major neurocognitive disorder, hypertension, diabetes, asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart pathology, severe renal failure with a clearance of creatinine under 30ml/min, solid or liquid cancer) were collected. The symptoms within de 72 hours of the actual disease were also collected for each patient including geriatric syndromes (fall, hypoactive or hyperactive delirium, altered general status, altered conscience), general symptoms (temperature, blood pressure), respiratory symptoms (cough, polypnea), ear nose and throat (ENT) symptoms (rhinorrhea, odynophagia, otalgia, conjunctivitis, ageusia or dysgeusia, anosmia), digestive symptoms (diarrhea, nausea or vomiting), and blood formula modification (leucopenia (with count if available), lymphopenia (with count if available), thrombopenia (with count if available).

Procedure Data were collected by the physician who was in charge of the patient between March 22, 2020 and April 5, 2020.

Given the main objective of the study was only descriptive, no calculation was required concerning the number of subjects to include in the study.