Highlights
The current COVID-19 pandemic has stretched advanced health systems beyond their capacities.
Previous pneumonia severity scores have been promoted as useful tools to help clinicians predict outcomes and guide clinical decisions.
The CURB-65 and Quick COVID-19 Severity Index scoring systems showed a good performance for predicting in-hospital mortality.
The Quick COVID-19 Severity Index score and the Brescia-COVID Respiratory Severity Scale prediction rule showed a good performance for predicting intensive care unit admission.
Background
Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is the leading non-communicable disease worldwide and is associated with several microvascular and macrovascular complications. Individuals with T2D are more prone to acquiring selected types of infections and are more susceptible to complications due to these infections. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between T2D and COVID-19 in the community setting.
Methods
This was a single-center retrospective analysis that included 147 adult patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 admitted to a community hospital. Demographics, medical history, symptoms and signs, laboratory findings, complications during the hospital course, and treatments were collected and analyzed. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to describe the probability of intubation in patients with T2D as compared with patients without T2D. The hazard ratio for intubation in the survival analysis was estimated using a bivariable Cox proportional-hazards model.
Results
Of 147 patients, 73 (49.7%) had a history of T2D. Patients with T2D had higher requirement of ICU admission (31.5% vs 12.2%; p=.004), higher incidence of ARDS (35.6% vs 16.2%, p=.007), higher rates of intubation (32.9% vs 12.2%, p=0.003), and higher use neuromuscular blocking agents (23.3% vs 9.5%, p=.02). In the survival analysis at 28 days of follow-up, patients with T2D showed an increased hazard for intubation (HR 3.00; 95% CI, 1.39 to 6.46).
Conclusion
In our patient population, patients with COVID-19 and T2D showed significantly higher ARDS incidence and intubation rates. The survival analysis also showed that after 28 days of follow-up, patients with T2D presented an increased risk for shorter time to intubation.
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