Healthcare workers hospitalized due to COVID-19 have no higher risk of death than general population. Data from the Spanish SEMI-COVID-19 Registry

  1. Jesús Díez-Manglano
  2. Marta Nataya Solís-Marquínez
  3. Andrea Álvarez García
  4. Nicolás Alcalá-Rivera
  5. Irene Maderuelo Riesco
  6. Martín Gericó Aseguinolaza
  7. José Luis Beato Pérez
  8. Manuel Méndez Bailón
  9. Ane-Elbire Labirua-Iturburu Ruiz
  10. Miriam García Gómez
  11. Carmen Martínez Cilleros
  12. Paula María Pesqueira Fontan
  13. Lucy Abella Vázquez
  14. Julio César Blázquez Encinar
  15. Ramon Boixeda
  16. Ricardo Gil Sánchez
  17. Andrés de la Peña Fernández
  18. José Loureiro Amigo
  19. Joaquín Escobar Sevilla
  20. Marcos Guzmán Garcia
  21. María Dolores Martín Escalante
  22. Jeffrey Oskar Magallanes Gamboa
  23. Ángel Luis Martínez González
  24. Carlos Lumbreras Bermejo
  25. Juan Miguel Antón Santos
  26. for the SEMI-COVID-19 Network

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Abstract

To determine whether healthcare workers (HCW) hospitalized in Spain due to COVID-19 have a worse prognosis than non-healthcare workers (NHCW).

Methods

Observational cohort study based on the SEMI-COVID-19 Registry, a nationwide registry that collects sociodemographic, clinical, laboratory, and treatment data on patients hospitalised with COVID-19 in Spain. Patients aged 20–65 years were selected. A multivariate logistic regression model was performed to identify factors associated with mortality.

Results

As of 22 May 2020, 4393 patients were included, of whom 419 (9.5%) were HCW. Median (interquartile range) age of HCW was 52 (15) years and 62.4% were women. Prevalence of comorbidities and severe radiological findings upon admission were less frequent in HCW. There were no difference in need of respiratory support and admission to intensive care unit, but occurrence of sepsis and in-hospital mortality was lower in HCW (1.7% vs. 3.9%; p = 0.024 and 0.7% vs. 4.8%; p<0.001 respectively). Age, male sex and comorbidity, were independently associated with higher in-hospital mortality and healthcare working with lower mortality (OR 0.211, 95%CI 0.067–0.667, p = 0.008). 30-days survival was higher in HCW (0.968 vs. 0.851 p<0.001).

Conclusions

Hospitalized COVID-19 HCW had fewer comorbidities and a better prognosis than NHCW. Our results suggest that professional exposure to COVID-19 in HCW does not carry more clinical severity nor mortality.

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  1. Version published to 10.1371/journal.pone.0247422
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.23.20236810: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: The exclusion criteria were subsequent admission of the same patient or denial or withdrawal of informed consent.
    IRB: The study was approved by the Provincial Research Ethics Committee of Málaga (Spain) following the recommendation of the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Products (AEMPS, for its initials in Spanish).
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical analysis was carried out using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 21.0 software for Windows.
    Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    However, our study also has limitations. Only hospitalised patients were included, so it is not possible to extrapolate our results to non-hospitalised patients. The large number of researchers involved and variability in the availability of data in each hospital could have led to information bias. Finally, the voluntary participation of each centre could have caused selection bias. In conclusion, HCW had fewer comorbidities, milder symptoms, and a better prognosis than the NHCW. Our results suggest that professional exposure to COVID-19 in HCW does not lead to greater clinical severity nor mortality.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.11.23.20236810v1 on medRxiv