Mortality Predictors Among COVID-19 Elderly in Taif, Saudi Arabia

Duaa Bakhshwin; Musim Alotaibi; Ahmed S Ali; Abdullah Althomali; Abdullah Alsuwat; Abdulrahman Alhamyani; Abdulqader Alwathnani; Samar Alsaggaf; Aziza Alrafiah

doi:10.2147/IDR.S364279

Mortality Predictors Among COVID-19 Elderly in Taif, Saudi Arabia

Infect Drug Resist. 2022 Jun 20:15:3213-3223. doi: 10.2147/IDR.S364279. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Duaa Bakhshwin¹, Musim Alotaibi², Ahmed S Ali^{1

3}, Abdullah Althomali², Abdullah Alsuwat², Abdulrahman Alhamyani², Abdulqader Alwathnani², Samar Alsaggaf⁴, Aziza Alrafiah⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmacology Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
² King Faisal Medical Complex, Taif, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
³ Department of Pharmaceutics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.
⁴ Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Medical Laboratory Sciences, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Background: By December 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic had caused more than 266 million cases and 5 million deaths, especially among geriatric patients.

Objective: To identify determinants of COVID-19-related death in geriatric patients.

Methods: This is a comparative retrospective study involving 145 COVID-19 hospitalized patients who are more than 60 years old, conducted at King Faisal Medical Complex in Taif, Saudi Arabia, from June 2020 to August 2020. The main outcome studied was COVID-19-related death.

Results: Out of 145 elderly COVID-19 patients, 11% have died. There was a significant difference between those who died and the surviving group regarding hospital stay duration, with a higher duration median among those who died (22 days vs 12 day respectively, p=0.002). Transfer to ICU, mechanical ventilation, low oxygen saturation, shortness of breath, respiratory support, x-ray trend, and prolonged QT interval showed significant statistical differences between them (p<0.001, <0.001, 0.017, 0.045, <0.001, <0.001, 0.004, respectively). After doing logistic regression of predictors for progression to death, putting patients on oxygen only vs mechanical ventilation was statistically significant, with an adjusted odds ratio (AOR) of 0.038 (p=0.012). Worse x-rays vs constant also were statistically significant and had AOR of 23.459 (p=0.001). There was a significant moderate positive correlation between duration of hospital stay and duration from admission to medication start (SP=0.336 and p<0.001).

Conclusion: We recommend accurately monitoring patients using x-rays to determine which patients have worse x-rays. However, the cost-benefit of using radiation must be well assessed and needs further research to determine if its benefit outweighs its risks, especially in high-risk patients. Furthermore, mechanically ventilated patients must be carefully monitored. Finally, the duration of hospital stay was highly correlated with the duration from admission to medication start. Therefore, proper treatment must be started as early as possible.

Keywords: COVID-19; ICU; elderly; mortality.