COVID-19 observations from hospitalized patients in the Northern Emirates
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Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has established itself as the defining global health crisis of this time. The study describes the clinical profile of hospitalized, non-intensive care unit (ICU) patients with COVID-19 in the UAE during its second wave, through January–March 2021. It also highlights the use of antibiotic stewardship principles in patients admitted with COVID-19.
Methods
An observational, retrospective study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital based in the Northern Emirates of UAE. A consecutive sample of 110 acutely hospitalized patients with COVID-19 participated in the study. Pregnant women, patients who were admitted to the ICU, and those receiving antibiotics prior to admission were excluded. Data were collected from the written and electronic health records of included patients and subsequently analyzed using IBM SPSS (v25).
Results
Population was 58.2% male with a mean age of 51.2 years; 69.1% had at least one comorbidity and 61.8% had severe COVID-19 disease. Mean white blood cell count was 6.03 ± 2.70 × 10 9 cells/L with a mean C-reactive protein of 83.3 ± 14.6 mg/L. About 4.2% of the tested (20.9%) blood cultures were positive. Empiric antibiotic use was limited to 9.1% of the population.
Conclusion
The UAE population admitted in the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic was mostly male, older with higher prevalence of comorbidities. Given the limited knowledge of the disease, the calculated clinical measures were taken to bring antibiotic use to an extraordinarily low level, not previously seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.10.20.21265254: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics IRB: Data Collection: After review by the Research Ethics Committee of University of Sharjah (REC 21-07-15-01-S) and approval from the hospital board, data was collected from the written and electronic health records of included patients within the hospital. Sex as a biological variable Pregnant women, patients who were admitted to/transferred to/discharged from the intensive care unit (ICU), patients who were receiving antibiotics prior to admission were excluded from the study. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis Sample size calculation with a confidence level of 95% and margin of error of 5% for UAE’s population of 9.89 million in 2020, (9) determined the minimum … SciScore for 10.1101/2021.10.20.21265254: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics IRB: Data Collection: After review by the Research Ethics Committee of University of Sharjah (REC 21-07-15-01-S) and approval from the hospital board, data was collected from the written and electronic health records of included patients within the hospital. Sex as a biological variable Pregnant women, patients who were admitted to/transferred to/discharged from the intensive care unit (ICU), patients who were receiving antibiotics prior to admission were excluded from the study. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis Sample size calculation with a confidence level of 95% and margin of error of 5% for UAE’s population of 9.89 million in 2020, (9) determined the minimum required sample size to be 384 participants. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Statistical analysis: Data was imported from Microsoft Excel to IBM SPSS, version 25 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA), for analysis and interpretation. Microsoft Excelsuggested: (Microsoft Excel, RRID:SCR_016137)SPSSsuggested: (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:The limitation of this study lies in its relatively small sample size. Combined with its design as a single-center study, there is limited generalizability of the results. Lack of information on post-discharge health status of these patients could be a potential limitation addressed by future studies to expand knowledge on management of this illness. There is growing concern for a potential rise in antimicrobial resistance due to increased antibiotic prescription for COVID-19 patients around the world. The potential of bold strategies as adopted in our study, pave the way forward to cement existing antimicrobial stewardship programs. A recent study conducted in the UAE identified that 63.4% medical professionals follow national health authorities as their primary source of COVID-19 information. (21) Thus, a national framework would serve as a context-specific reference covering education about antimicrobial resistance, tracking local patterns, development of clinical guidelines and antibiotic control.
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.
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