Factors Associated with Admission to the Intensive Care Unit in Hospitalized Patients with a Diagnosis of COVID-19

Abstract

Aim: Identifying at-risk groups during the pandemic period, when the need for health services increases, is important for preventing mortality and morbidity and for organizing the patients and intensive care beds, equipment, and personnel that will be needed at that time. In our study, we aimed to evaluate the difference in chronic diseases, demographic data, and laboratory tests between patients with a diagnosis of COVID-19 who need and do not need intensive care in the hospital, and to investigate the factors affecting the need for intensive care.

Methods: The study is a retrospective cross-sectional study and included 256 patients with a diagnosis of COVID-19. They were hospitalized in the pandemic service of the training and research hospital between 01.11.2020 and 31.12.2020. The patients were divided into two groups: those who needed intensive care and those who did not. The relationship between the need for intensive care and demographic data, chronic diseases and laboratory data, and the differences between the groups were examined. IBM SPSS Statistics 21.0 (IBM Corp. Released 2012. IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 21.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.) was used for statistical analyzes and calculations. p<0.05 was accepted as the statistical significance level.

Results: The mean age of the patients participating in the study was 63.36±14.18 (22-94) years, and %60,5 were male. In those who need intensive care, male gender, mean age, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine, Aspartate aminotransferase (AST), C-Reactive Protein, International Normalized Ratio (INR), Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), ferritin, D-dimer values are intense. Statistically significantly higher, lymphocyte count was found to be lower than those who did not go to care. Asthma-COPD, age, gender, and LDH positively predicted the need for intensive care, whereas lymphocytes and length of hospital stay negatively predicted.

Conclusion: In our study, advanced age, male gender, the presence of asthma and COPD, increased platelet counts, and decreased lymphocyte counts were determined as risk factors for the need for intensive care, and with the general condition of risky patients and closer monitoring of laboratory data, intensive care may be reduced.