Introduction

COVID-19is a pandemic disease as stated by World Health Organization in 2020 1. WHO reported COVID-19had infected more than 208 million people, and around 4,38 million died. Indonesia is the fourth largest population globally, and from the database, many people were infected by COVID-19, followed by mortality due to this infection 2. Based on the WHO report, the risk factors of death of COVID-19are age, comorbidity, and the severity of illness 1. For comorbidity, patients with respiratory diseases such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are more dangerous to have the severe disease of this infection than others 3.

METHOD

The method of this research was a cross-sectional study using convenience sampling. In this research, data collection was carried out using filled-up questionnaires (Figure 1). The questiоnnaireswere performed online by spreading gооglе fоrm of the questionnaires through whаtsаpp, lіnе, іnstаgrаm, twіt-

tеr, and fаcеbооk for one month to the family, friends, and relatives of the dead patients, but only 60 google forms were returned. Before the participants filled the google form, the participants had to fill up the informed consent. Inclusion criteria were all sample who were in the friend list of social media researchers, and the exclusion criteria were all sample who did not fill the entire form. Before the research was conducted, ethical approval was given by the ethical research committee from the Health Faculty of EsaUnggul; No. 0001-21.001/DPKE-KEP/FINAL_EA/UEU/I/2021.

Results and Discussion

The validity test showed that all items of the questionnaire were valid. For reliability, the test showed Cronbach’s alpha of 0.86. Table 1 shows that most of the patients who died from COVID-19 had a history of secondary metabolic disease of Hypertension/Diabetes as many as 25 people or by 42%. According to a statement by the WHO, it is stated that an individual's mortality rate can be related to age and medical history. People susceptible to COVID-19 and needing special treatment are the old-aged group and or those suffering from congenital diseases such as hypertension, heart, lung, cancer, and diabetes disorders 1. Most of the patients who died from COVID-19 had a length of stay in the hospital for 1-2 weeks or as many as 26 people or 43%, followed by a treatment period of 2-3 weeks as many as 25 people or 42% (Table 1). These findings underscore the importance of preventive measures (e.g., social distancing, respiratory hygiene, and wearing face coverings in public settings where social distancing measures are difficult to maintain) to protect the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions 4.

Based on Table 2, the p-value is 0.003 (p-value < 0.05) so that there is a significant relationship between the causes of death of COVID-19 patients in Indonesia and age. The percentage of COVID-19 mortality increases due to the increasing age, with the youngest patients being 5% to the oldest 55%. Another study from, Ramatillah, et al., 2021 reported that patients with age 79 above had a mortality rate of 100% 5. There is a significant relationship between the causes of death of COVID-19 patients in Indonesia and the comorbidity. Most patients have symptoms consistent with COVID-19, and the overall complication rate is high 6. In Huang's study, he concluded that the number of patients with a history of diabetes could be associated with severe COVID-19 mortality, ARDS, disease progression in patients with COVID-19, weakness in older patients, and hypertension 7.

CONCLUSION

In this study, it can be concluded that the average cause of death due to COVID-19 in Indonesia is influenced by age >60 years, with the male sex being more exposed to COVID-19 where the patient has a history of the disease, namely, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

Funding Support

The authors declare that they have no funding support for this study.

Conflict of Interest

All authors declare no conflict of interest among them.