Background: Uneven vaccination and less resilient health care systems mean hospitals in LMICs are at risk of being overwhelmed during periods of increased COVID-19 infection. Risk-scores proposed for rapid triage of need for admission from the emergency department (ED) have been developed in higher-income settings during initial waves of the pandemic.
Methods: Routinely collected data for public hospitals in the Western Cape, South Africa from the 27 th August 2020 to 11 th March 2022 were used to derive a cohort of 446,084 ED patients with suspected COVID-19. The primary outcome was death or ICU admission at 30 days. The cohort was divided into derivation and Omicron variant validation sets. We developed the LMIC-PRIEST score based on the coefficients from multivariable analysis in the derivation cohort and existing triage practices. We externally validated accuracy in the Omicron period and a UK cohort.
Results: We analysed 305,564, derivation 140,520 Omicron and 12,610 UK validation cases. Over 100 events per predictor parameter were modelled. Multivariable analyses identified eight predictor variables retained across models. We used these findings and clinical judgement to develop a score based on South African Triage Early Warning Scores and also included age, sex, oxygen saturation, inspired oxygen, diabetes and heart disease. The LMIC-PRIEST score achieved C-statistics: 0.82 (95% CI: 0.82 to 0.83) development cohort; 0.79 (95% CI: 0.78 to 0.80) Omicron cohort; and 0.79 (95% CI: 0.79 to 0.80) UK cohort. Differences in prevalence of outcomes led to imperfect calibration in external validation. However, use of the score at thresholds of three or less would allow identification of very low-risk patients (NPV ≥0.99) who could be rapidly discharged using information collected at initial assessment.
Conclusion: The LMIC-PRIEST score shows good discrimination and high sensitivity at lower thresholds and can be used to rapidly identify low-risk patients in LMIC ED settings.
What is already known on this subject: Uneven vaccination in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) coupled with less resilient health care provision mean that emergency health care systems in LMICs may still be at risk of being overwhelmed during periods of increased COVID-19 infection.Risk-stratification scores may help rapidly triage need for hospitalisation. However, those proposed for use in the ED for patients with suspected COVID-19 have been developed and validated in high-income settings.
What this study adds: The LMIC-PRIEST score has been robustly developed using a large routine dataset from the Western Cape, South Africa and is directly applicable to existing triage practices in LMICs.External validation across both income settings and COVID-19 variants showed good discrimination and high sensitivity (at lower thresholds) to a composite outcome indicating need for inpatient admission from the ED.
How this study might affect research practice or policy: Use of the LMIC-PRIEST score at thresholds of three or less would allow identification of very low-risk patients (negative predictive value ≥0.99) across all settings assessedDuring periods of increased demand, this could allow the rapid identification and discharge of patients from the ED using information collected at initial assessment.