Assessment of Clinical and Laboratory Data among the Readmitted COVID-19 and Non COVID-19 Patients in Iran

ABSTRACT

Background & Objective: Hospital readmissions are common and expensive. Identifying the patients who are at high risk of readmission can decrease readmission cases. Hence, in the present study, the clinical characteristics, biomarker results, and Computed Tomography (CT) criteria of all the readmitted patients were assessed. Materials & Methods: Data of 98 readmitted patients to the Baqiyatallah Hospital in Tehran were reviewed from December 22, 2019 through June 20, 2020. We classified the readmitted patients into three groups patients (1) without COVID-19 symptoms, (2) with suspected COVID-19, and (3) with confirmed COVID-19 infection. Results: Our data revealed that the frequency of gender was significantly different between the groups (with higher frequency in men). The duration between the two admissions was significantly low in the confirmed COVID-19 group. Ischemic heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus were more common in confirmed COVID-19 group. High levels of CRP, and ESR were detected in the confirmed COVID-19 group. During the first admission, the WBC count was significantly lower in the confirmed COVID-19 group, the RBC count and hemoglobin level were significantly higher in both first and second admissions in the confirmed COVID-19 group. Most of the patients had bilateral lung lesions and ground glass opacities (GGO) in their CT Scans in the second admission. Conclusion: Our data suggested that the older men and ischemic heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus had a high risk of hospital readmission in COVID-19. The confirmed COVID-19 group showed a shorter time to be readmitted.