Different COVID-19 outcomes in male and female healthcare workers of University Hospital in Italy

ABSTRACT

We analyzed the different clinical outcomes in male and female healthcare workers (HCWs) infected with Covid-19, followed up over the first three months after the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy. The population under study was composed of 64 healthcare workers among the 3585 HCWs infected with COVID-19. Patients reporting dyspnea and/or needing hospitalization were classified into the “severe disease” group;HCWs with mild symptoms of Covid-19 (such as fever, dry cough, etc.), with no need for hospitalization, were classified into the “mild disease” group. The 19 % and 25.6 % of workers, among the males and females’ groups respectively, were asymptomatic. Males showed higher percentage of severe symptoms (47.1 %, vs 15.6 %). Furthermore, as regards symptomatic workers, the hospitalization was more frequent in men than in women (52.9 % vs 15.1 %). Through a binary logistic regression, with prevalence of “severe symptoms” considered as a dependent variable and “sex” and “age” as an independent variable, the Odds ratio M/F was equal to 4.8 (CI 1.247, 18.482), whilst “age” seemed to play no role. Despite the limited size of the population under study, our results confirmed that HCW men are more likely than women to experience worse clinical outcomes. © 2022 Elsevier Masson SAS