Association between previous rheumatoid arthritis and COVID-19 and its severity: a nationwide cohort study in South Korea.
BMJ Open
; 11(10): e054753, 2021 10 07.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1462976
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES:
The prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) among patients with COVID-19 and the association between RA and the outcome of COVID-19 remain unclear. We aimed to compare the prevalence of RA between participants with and without COVID-19; we then analysed the association between the presence of RA and the severity of COVID-19.DESIGN:
A cross-sectional study.SETTING:
Data from a nationwide COVID-19 cohort database by the Korea National Health Insurance Corporation were used. PARTICIPANTS ANDINTERVENTIONS:
A total of 8070 patients with COVID-19 (1 January 2020 through 4 June 2020) were matched with 32 280 control participants with regard to age, sex and income. Patients with COVID-19 were confirmed by SARS-CoV-2 PCR and controls were collected from the database. RA was confirmed using the diagnostic code (International Classification of Disease, Tenth Revision) and medication claim codes. Conditional/unconditional logistic regression was applied to analyse the association between RA and COVID-19. PRIMARY OUTCOME AND SECONDARYOUTCOME:
Laboratory confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 infection was defined as the primary outcome. The secondary outcome was severe COVID-19 defined as a history of intensive care unit admission, invasive ventilation or death.RESULTS:
The prevalence of RA in the COVID-19 (0.4%, 35/8070) and control (0.4%, 121/32,280) groups did not differ (p=0.446). After adjusting for underlying diseases, no association between RA and COVID-19 was observed (adjusted OR=1.14, 95% CI 0.78 to 1.67) and COVID-19 severity was not associated with RA (adjusted OR=0.62, 95% CI 0.14 to 7.29). The overall mortality rate was 2.9% (237/8070) and RA was not significantly associated with mortality (adjusted OR=1.64, 95% CI 0.33 to 8.15).CONCLUSION:
We did not find an association between the presence of RA and COVID-19. In addition, RA was not associated with the severity of COVID-19.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Arthritis, Rheumatoid
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Topics:
Long Covid
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Asia
Language:
English
Journal:
BMJ Open
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
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