Risk factors and survival in patients with COVID-19 in northeastern Brazil

  1. Ana Tereza Fernandes
  2. Eujessika K. Rodrigues
  3. Eder R. Araújo
  4. Magno F. Formiga
  5. Priscilla K. Sá Horan
  6. Ana Beatriz Nunes de Sousa Ferreira
  7. Humberto A. Barbosa
  8. Paulo S. Barbosa

Reviewed by

Read the full article

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

Knowledge about the epidemiology and risk factors surrounding COVID-19 contributes to developing better health strategies to combat the disease.

Objective

This study aimed to establish a survival analysis and identify the risk factors for patients with COVID-19 in an upper middle-income city in Brazil.

Methods

A retrospective cohort study was conducted with 280 hospitalized patients with COVID-19. The eCOVID platform provided data to monitor COVID-19 cases and help the communication between professionals.

Results

Age ≥ 65 years was associated with decreased survival (54.8%), and females had a lower survival rate than males (p = 0.01). Regarding risk factors, urea concentration (p<0.001), hospital length of stay (p = 0.002), oxygen concentration (p = 0.005), and age (p = 0.02) were associated with death.

Conclusion

Age, hospital length of stay, high blood urea concentration, and low oxygen concentration were associated with death by COVID-19 in the studied population. These findings corroborate with studies conducted in research centers worldwide.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.1371/journal.pone.0278213
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.01.27.22269602: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: The study was approved by the local research ethics committee (approval number 4.241.971) and followed all ethical aspects involving research in humans and the Declaration of Helsinki.
    Sex as a biological variableWe included hospitalized patients of both sexes, aged 18 or over, diagnosed with COVID-19 using RT-PCR test (nasopharynx swab)3, with epidemiological history of COVID-19 and/or relevant clinical symptoms and serological parameters9,10.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The software Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 22 (IBM Corp.,
    Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Limited access of the population to COVID-19 diagnostic test and its acquisition and availability by the health system may be a potential limitation of this study. Specifically during hospital care, some patients were already outside the window of time to detect SARS-CoV-2 using RT-PCR. Therefore, diagnosis was performed by identifying immunoglobulins M and G and clinical and/or radiological evolution of the patient. Furthermore, the unfamiliarity of the population with signs and symptoms of COVID-19 may have delayed healthcare seeking. As a result, patients arrived at the hospital with advanced disease.

    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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2022.01.27.22269602v1 on medRxiv