ABSTRACT

Objective: The aim of this study is to determine the demographics, comorbidities, presenting complaints, laboratory parameters, and factors associated with patients’ outcomes of the hospitalized patients with COVID-19 from one of the largest teaching institute of Karachi.

Methodology: This was single center retrospective study conducted in Liaquat National Hospital Karachi, Pakistan. Records of all the COVID-19 positive patients who were hospitalized during April, 2020 to June, 2020 were studied. The diagnosis of COVID-19 was confirmed based on guidelines issued by WHO and standard laboratory test of real time PCR on a nasopharyngeal swab.

Results: Total 208 records were completely retrieved and analyzed. Overall age of study participants was 54.60 ± 13.77 years. Most of the admitted patients were males (68.3%). Majority of the patients were symptomatic (94.2%) and frequent symptoms were fever(75%), shortness of breath (58.7%) and cough (54.3%). Out of 252 patients, In-hospital mortality was observed on approximately quarter of the analyzed sample (26%) patients. Disease severity, presence of comorbid, higher hospital stay, NLR ratio and CRP levels were associated with significantly higher odds of mortality. On multivariable analysis, increasing age (aOR=1.18, 95% CI: 1.08 - 1.29), ICU admission (aOR=43.44, 95% CI: 5.49 – 343.8) and increasing creatinine (aOR=1.55, 95% CI: 1.00 – 2.39) were also independent predictors of mortality.

Conclusion: The current study provides evidence that increasing age and ICU admission and increasing age were chief predictors of mortality in our settings. Presence of comorbidity and initial diseases severity are also important factors to triage patients.

Keywords: COVID-19, pandemic, intensive care unit, mortality, Karachi,