Utility of Walk Tests in the Progression of Mild COVID-19 Infection at a Tertiary Hospital in North India

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Abstract

There have been 214 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide with a total death tally of 4.4 million. The current study aims to determine the predictive value of various scores in assessment of progression of mild COVID-19 infection at a tertiary care hospital in North India.

Methods:

The study population consisted of adults (age more than 18 years) with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 by RT-PCR on nasopharyngeal specimens. Patients with only mild illness were enrolled. After the patients were admitted to the isolation ward, the presenting history, comorbidity status, vital signs and laboratory parameters were recorded. The 3 and 6 minute walk test was performed daily from admission till discharge or progression of severity of COVID-19 and it was used to calculate Borg dyspnoea score (BDS) and National Early Warning Score (NEWS2) scores.

Results:

Our study consisted of 50 patients with 34 (68%) males and the mean (SD) age of the patient population being 28.1 (6.4) years. The most common symptoms were fever, sore throat, and cough. All laboratory parameters were within normal ranges for all the patients. 96% recovered without progression, while only 4% of them progressed to moderate illness. Results of the 3 and 6 minutes walk tests, BDS and NEWS2 scores showed improvement over the course of hospital stay.

Conclusions:

Although the walk tests and the scores improved over time, they failed to predict the disease progression.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2021.10.03.21264476: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: In view of the infectious nature of the disease telephonic consent was obtained.
    IRB: The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India. Data Collection: A formal sample size calculation was not done and instead convenience sampling was used.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power AnalysisThe study was approved by the Ethics Committee of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India. Data Collection: A formal sample size calculation was not done and instead convenience sampling was used.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical analysis was performed using StataCorp. 2015. Stata Statistical
    StataCorp
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)

    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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).


    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.