Background and objective: The presence of multiple chronic diseases is associated with an increase in mortality when related to COVID-19 infection.
The aims of our study were: (i) to evaluate the association between the severity of the COVID-19 disease, defined as symptomatic hospitalized in prison or symptomatic hospitalized out of prison, and the presence of one or more comorbidities in two prisons in central Italy: L'Aquila and Sulmona; (ii) to describe the profiles of inmates using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA).
Methods: A database was created including age, gender and clinical variables. The database containing anonymized data was password-protected. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to evaluate a possible association between diseases and the severity of COVID-19 stratified by age groups. We used MCA to describe a possible characteristic profile of inmates.
Results: Our results show that in the 25-50-year-old age group (COVID-19-negative) in the L'Aquila prison, 19/62 (30.65%) were without comorbidity, 17/62 (27.42%) had 1-2 comorbidities and only 3.23% had >2 diseases. It is interesting to note that in the elderly group, the frequency of 1-2 or >2 pathologies was higher than in the younger group, and only 3/51 (5.88%) inmates did not have comorbidities and were COVID-19 negative (p = 0.008). The MCA identified the following profiles: the prison of L'Aquila showed a group of women over 60 with diabetes, cardiovascular and orthopedic problems, and hospitalized for COVID-19; the Sulmona prison presented a group of males over 60 with diabetes, cardiovascular, respiratory, urological, gastrointestinal and orthopedic problems, and hospitalized or symptomatic due to COVID-19.
Conclusions: our study has demonstrated and confirmed that advanced age and the presence of concomitant pathologies have played a significant role in the severity of the disease: symptomatic hospitalized in the prison; symptomatic hospitalized out of the prison.
Keywords: COVID-19; comorbidity; inmate; multiple correspondence analysis; prison.