Predisposing Factors Associated with the Severity of the Illness in Adults with Covid-19 in Nepal

  1. Roshan Kumar Jha
  2. Shiv Kumar Sah

Reviewed by

Read the full article See related articles

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

Introduction: COVID-19 has currently become a global health hazard to humansociety as the disease has strained healthcare system worldwide. Individualswith increased risk of severity of the disease in particular need to be identifiedfor the protection, better health care management, and for in search of thepotential treatment. We aimed to identify the rate of the severity of COVID-19illness and its associated potential predictive factors in Nepal. Methods: we conducted a cross-sectional, observational study in 298 individualsconfirmed with COVID-19 cases admitted at COVID-19 care center at NepalArmed Police Force Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal for two months (Dec 2020- Jan2021). Disease severity was evaluated as a core variable and age, sex, BMI,smoking history, alcohol history, Hypertension, diabetes mellitus were evaluatedas confounders. Results: Mean ages of the patients were 40.79±16.04 years, and about two thirdof the patients were male 146 (73.7%). More than half 57.1% (95%CI: 52.42-61.51)population had mild infection, whereas 16.7% (5%CI: 7.4-24.6%) had severe/critical ill. Each 1- year increase in age (OR: 1.05; P<0.001; 95%CI:1.030-1.081),each 1 unit increase in BMI (OR:1.12; 95%CI:1.02-1.25;P:0.033; P<0.033), comorbidillness (5.79; 95%CI;2.51-13.33; P<0.001), hypertension (OR:5.95;95%CI:2.66-13.30:P<0.001), diabetes mellitus(OR:3.26; 95%CI:1.30-8.15: P<0.005), fever(OR:34.64; 95%CI:7.98-150.38; P<0.001) were independently associated withsevere cases. Hypertension (OR: 5.22; 95%CI: 1.89-14.41; P=0.001) remainedsignificant predictor for increased severity of the disease even after adjustingfor age, sex, BMI, smoking history, comorbid illness, and diabetes mellitus. Conclusion: The majority of the patients with COVID-19 had mild illness, and16.7% manifested severe illness. Age, BMI, comorbidity, hypertension, diabetesmellitus, and temperature were identified as predictive factor for severity of thedisease, and hypertension remained the independent factor for severity of thedisease even after adjusting for significant confounders. 

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.37080/nmj.232
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.05.16.21257280: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: The study protocol was approved by Ethical Review Board (ERB) of Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC), Nepal (Ref. No: 1297).
    Consent: Informed consent was granted from all patients recruited in the study.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Data processing and analysis: The data collected from patients’ medical records were entered into an excel spreadsheet and then exported to SPSS version 20 for analysis.
    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: 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 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 10.1101/2021.05.16.21257280 on medRxiv