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OBJECTIVE: We aimed to determine the effects of the pandemic on the inpatients in the geriatric unit by comparing the demographic and clinical characteristics, reasons for hospitalization, morbidity, and mortality of the patients before and during the pandemic. METHODS: The population of this retrospective, cross-sectional study consisted of inpatients in the geriatric unit for two years (11 March 2019-10 March 2021). The patients were separated into two groups according to the hospitalization time as pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 period. Hospitalization types, reasons for hospitalization, length of stay, demographic data, chronic diseases, drugs, developed morbidities, discharge, and 1-year mortality status of the patients were recorded. RESULTS: Three hundred and fifty patients were included in our study. The mean age was 80.4 ± 8.02. It was observed that the number of hospitalized patients decreased by â¼50% in the COVID-19 period. However, there was a significant decrease in hospitalization due to the control of chronic diseases during the COVID-19 period (p = .008). The number of inpatients from the emergency department was found to be higher during the COVID-19 period (p < .001). Regarding the presence of geriatric syndromes, polypharmacy (p = .011) and delirium (p = .035) were found to be significantly less in the pre-COVID-19 period. The percentage of malnutrition was also detected as lower, but it was not statistically significant. In terms of 1-year mortality, although not statistically significant, the all-cause mortality rate was higher during the COVID-19 period (p = .08). CONCLUSIONS: Pandemic has greatly affected the geriatric unit. The prognosis of the patients has worsened and mortality rates have increased. Physiological and psychological deterioration caused by quarantine measures, worsening chronic diseases, and immunosenescence affected the prognosis of geriatric patients. This adds to the previous literature by proving the fact that older individuals are the most vulnerable group in the pandemic.
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AIMS: In this study, we aimed to reveal mortality rates and factors affecting survival in geriatric patients infected with COVID-19. METHODS: This is a retrospective study of 873 geriatric patients with COVID-19 who were hospitalized between March 11, 2020 and March 11, 2021. Demographic, clinical, laboratory data, and treatment options were obtained from electronic medical records. Multivariate logistic regression was used to explore the risk factors for in-hospital death. RESULTS: During the specified period, 643 patients were discharged, and 230 patients died in the hospital. The mean age was 75.08 ± 7.39 years (mean ± SD) and 51.8% were males. We found that older age (≥ 85), polypharmacy, dyspnea, abnormal thorax computed tomography (CT), lower doses of anticoagulation, and high values of white blood cell, aspartate aminotransferase, C-reactive protein, lactate dehydrogenase, ferritin were associated with a significant increase in mortality (P < 0.001 for all). Although all of these values were significant in multivariate logistic regression analysis, the most important ones were dyspnea (Odds ratio (OR) 57.916, 95% confidence interval (CI) 23.439-143.104, P < 0.001), polypharmacy (OR 6.782, 95% CI 3.082-14.927, P < 0.001), and thorax CT classification (typical; OR 9.633, 95% CI 2.511-37.122, P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Older age, polypharmacy, dyspnea, and abnormal thorax CT were the most significant mortality criteria and in addition appropriate anticoagulant use was associated with reduced mortality. Identifying the risk factors to predict mortality in older adults with COVID-19 is important to treat future cases successfully.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Aged , Aged, 80 and over , Female , Hospital Mortality , Hospitalization , Humans , Male , Retrospective Studies , Risk Factors , SARS-CoV-2ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To analyse the main features of the top 100 (T100) most cited articles in academia and 100 most discussed articles on social media about vitamin D from 1975 to 2021 and compare bibliometric and altmetric analysis. METHODS: 'Vitamin D' was searched from the Web of Science database and Altmetric.com website, and T100 citation and altmetric lists were created, respectively. Articles in both lists were analysed in terms of study type, topic, first author, publication year, citation number and altmetric attention score (AAS). Impact factor (IF) and quartile of journal, in which the articles were published was also examined. RESULTS: The article "Vitamin D Deficiency" by Holick MF, published in the New England Journal of Medicine was the most cited article (n=8492), original scientific paper was the most frequent study type in both lists. No correlation was found between AAS and citation number in both lists (r=0.176, p=0.081; r=0.157, p=0.119, respectively). The journals on the T100 citation list had a statistically significantly higher IF than the journals in the T100 altmetric list (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: Altmetric analysis of vitamin D is currently insufficient to replace traditional bibliometric analysis but can provide valuable information about the society's interest. As social media gains more importance every day in our lives, high altmetric score could affect future interests and direct studies (Tab. 6, Fig. 3, Ref. 21).