Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Porur, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
Joint Director of Collegiate Education, Chennai Region, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
J Prim Care Community Health. 2021 Jan-Dec;12:21501327211000231. doi: 10.1177/21501327211000231.
The objective of the study was to identify the factors that alter the length of hospital stay of COVID-19 patients so we have an estimate of the duration of hospitalization of patients. To achieve this, we used a time to event analysis to arrive at factors that could alter the length of hospital stay, aiding in planning additional beds for any future rise in cases.
Information about COVID-19 patients was collected between June and August 2020. The response variable was the time from admission to discharge of patients. Cox proportional hazard model was used to identify the factors that were associated with the length of hospital stay.
A total of 730 COVID-19 patients were included, of which 675 (92.5%) recovered and 55 (7.5%) were considered to be right-censored, that is, the patient died or was discharged against medical advice. The median length of hospital stay of COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized was found to be 7 days by the Kaplan Meier curve. The covariates that prolonged the length of hospital stay were found to be abnormalities in oxygen saturation (HR = 0.446, < .001), neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (HR = 0.742, = .003), levels of D-dimer (HR = 0.60, = .002), lactate dehydrogenase (HR = 0.717, = .002), and ferritin (HR = 0.763, = .037). Also, patients who had more than 2 chronic diseases had a significantly longer length of stay (HR = 0.586, = .008) compared to those with no comorbidities.
Factors that are associated with prolonged length of hospital stay of patients need to be considered in planning bed strength on a contingency basis.
本研究旨在确定影响 COVID-19 患者住院时间长短的因素，以便我们能够预估患者的住院时间。为此，我们采用生存时间分析来确定可能改变住院时间的因素，以便为未来病例增加做好床位规划。
我们于 2020 年 6 月至 8 月期间收集 COVID-19 患者的信息。因变量为患者入院至出院的时间。我们采用 Cox 比例风险模型来确定与住院时间长短相关的因素。
共纳入 730 例 COVID-19 患者，其中 675 例（92.5%）痊愈，55 例（7.5%）被视为右删失，即患者死亡或未经医嘱提前出院。Kaplan-Meier 曲线显示 COVID-19 患者的中位住院时间为 7 天。结果发现，氧饱和度异常（HR=0.446， < .001）、中性粒细胞与淋巴细胞比值（HR=0.742， = .003）、D-二聚体（HR=0.60， = .002）、乳酸脱氢酶（HR=0.717， = .002）和铁蛋白（HR=0.763， = .037）水平升高会延长住院时间。此外，与无合并症的患者相比，患有 2 种及以上慢性疾病的患者的住院时间明显更长（HR=0.586， = .008）。
在根据需要规划床位时，需要考虑与患者住院时间延长相关的因素。
