Comorbidities might be a risk factor for the incidence of COVID-19: Evidence from a web-based survey of 780,961 participants (Preprint)

  1. Mohammad Rahanur Alam
  2. Md. Ruhul Kabir
  3. Sompa Reza

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Abstract

The global pandemic of COVID-19 is posing the biggest threat to humanity through its ubiquitous effect of unfathomable magnitude. It has been responsible for over four hundred thousand death worldwide to date. There has been evidence that various comorbidities have a higher risk associated with case fatality.

OBJECTIVE

Although COVID-19 is a viral disease, there might be an association between different comorbidities and the occurrence of the disease. Our study aims to determine the association between the COVID-19 infection and pre-existing comorbidities such as asthma, diabetes, liver disease, lung disease, heart disease, kidney disease, hypertension, and obesity through a web-based self-reported survey.

METHODS

Sociodemographic and medical history data on different comorbidities were collected by a web-based self-reported survey between 25th March 2020 to 4th June 2020 by the Nexoid United Kingdom. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were done using these risk factors as independent variables.

RESULTS

A total of 780,961 participants from 183 different countries and territories participated in this study. Among them, 1516 participants were diagnosed with COVID-19 prior to this study. A significant risk association was observed for age above 60 years, female gender as well as different pre-existing disease conditions such as diabetes, kidney disease, liver disease, and heart diseases. Asthma and diabetes were the major dominant comorbidities among patients, and patients with existing diabetes were 1.464 (AOR: 1.464; 95% CI: 1.228-1.744) times more likely to develop the disease than others who did not diagnose as diseased.

CONCLUSIONS

Older adults, female as well as people with comorbidities such as diabetes mellitus, heart disease, kidney disease, and liver disease, are the most vulnerable population for COVID-19. However, further studies should be carried out to explain the pathway of these risk associations.

CLINICALTRIAL

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  1. Version published to 10.2196/preprints.21779
  2. Version published to 10.2196/21779
  3. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.22.20137422: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    RandomizationIn order to preserve the confidentiality of the participants, several measures were ensured, such as e-mail address, I.P. address, date of birth was kept private as well as timestamp and location data were randomly adjusted.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Data analysis was carried out using IBM SPSS statistics (Version 23).
    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:
    There are some limitations to this study. First of all, this is an online-based self-reported study. Therefore, the accuracy and validity of the data are questionable. Secondly, most of the study participants are from North America, Europe, and South America, but there is a current galloping trend of infection and fatality in Asia. These findings may not apply to the population of these parts of the world. The online survey requires more knowledge, technological skills, and logistics. The people from low and middle-income countries, as well as the older adults, lack the logistics and technological skills for participating in these studies. Finally, kidney disease, lung disease, heart disease, liver disease are composed of an array of diseases. No specific disease was mentioned in this study rather than just groups of diseases. If the particular type of disease was mention that would have provided a more specific and more precise picture. Though more specific clinical studies are required to understand this unprecedented mystery of a disease and how it affects other deadly comorbidities or whether other comorbidities had any say on this association still requires studies of different kinds to come close to any conclusive remarks. Our study attempted to shed some light on how comorbidities can come in and increases the likelihood of getting infected, and the pathways of infection require clarification, which we believe will be sorted out with further studies.

    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

    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.

  4. Version published to 10.1101/2020.06.22.20137422v1 on medRxiv