Frequency of comorbidities & their association with intensive care unit admission in hospitalised patients with 2019 novel coronavirus infection in tertiary care centres of three states of India

ABSTRACT

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has created a substantial burden on healthcare services worldwide. Since its first detection in 30th January, it has rapidly spread throughout India. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection results in clusters of severe acute respiratory illness leading to intensive care unit (ICU) admission and considerable mortality. So, there has been an ardent need of data on the frequency of comorbidities in COVID-19 & to assess whether their presence is associated with increased ICU admission. We analysed data from 496 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 admitted in tertiary care centers of three states of India from 15th to 30th May, 2020. The mean age was 49.7 years & 41.13% of the patients were female. Hypertension (21.97%) was the most frequent comorbidity followed by diabetes (12.90%) & cardiovascular disease (8.87%). 39.92% of the study population had at least one comorbidity. Patients with comorbidities had higher ICU admission than those without comorbidity (35.35% vs. 20.47%). Associated comorbidity was more frequent among ICU patients in comparison to non-ICU patients (53.43% vs. 35.07%). Our study findings suggest that presence of comorbidity is associated with higher ICU admission thereby indicating more severe disease.