Beyond Chronological Age: Frailty and Multimorbidity Predict In-Hospital Mortality in Patients With Coronavirus Disease 2019.
J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci
; 76(3): e38-e45, 2021 02 25.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-939565
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
We evaluated whether frailty and multimorbidity predict in-hospital mortality in patients with COVID-19 beyond chronological age.METHOD:
A total of 165 patients admitted from March 8th to April 17th, 2020, with COVID-19 in an acute geriatric ward in Italy were included. Predisease frailty was assessed with the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS). Multimorbidity was defined as the co-occurrence of ≥2 diseases in the same patient. The hazard ratio (HR) of in-hospital mortality as a function of CFS score and number of chronic diseases in the whole population and in those aged 70+ years were calculated.RESULTS:
Among the 165 patients, 112 were discharged, 11 were transferred to intensive care units, and 42 died. Patients who died were older (81.0 vs 65.2 years, p < .001), more frequently multimorbid (97.6 vs 52.8%; p < .001), and more likely frail (37.5 vs 4.1%; p < .001). Less than 2.0% of patients without multimorbidity and frailty, 28% of those with multimorbidity only, and 75% of those with both multimorbidity and frailty died. Each unitary increment in the CFS was associated with a higher risk of in-hospital death in the whole sample (HR = 1.3; 95% CI = 1.05-1.62) and in patients aged 70+ years (HR = 1.29; 95% CI = 1.04-1.62), whereas the number of chronic diseases was not significantly associated with higher risk of death. The CFS addition to age and sex increased mortality prediction by 9.4% in those aged 70+ years.CONCLUSIONS:
Frailty identifies patients with COVID-19 at risk of in-hospital death independently of age. Multimorbidity contributes to prognosis because of the very low probability of death in its absence.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Frail Elderly
/
Hospital Mortality
/
Frailty
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Aged
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
English
Journal:
J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci
Journal subject:
Geriatrics
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Gerona
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