Investigating the Association Between Comorbidity With Chronic Diseases and ICU Hospitalization/death Rate in the Elderly Infected With COVID-19

Introduction: The association of comorbidity diseases such as diabetes and hypertension with the severity of COVID-19 disease has been repeatedly assessed. However, less research has been done specifically on elderly. This study aimed to describe the demographic and clinical characteristics and evaluate the association of comorbidities with other diseases and increase the percentage of hospitalization in the ICU and death due to COVID-19 in the elderly. Method: This retrospective study was conducted in elderly patients with Covid-19 admitted to Baharloo Hospital. Demographic information, types of underlying disease, and need for hospitalization in the intensive care unit or death in hospital of hospitalized patients from March 2020 to July 2020 was extracted from COVID-19 Hospital Database. Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratio as a measure of the association between variables outcomes (death and hospitalization outcomes in the ICU) separately. Results: A total of 522 elderly patients were included in the study. About 77% (n=422) of the elderly survived and 23% (n=100) died. Participantschr('39') mean age was 72.55±8.44 years, and about 54% (281 people) were male. Logistic regression results showed that the odds of death in participants with two or more underlying diseases was 1.69 (OR = 1.69, 95% CI: 0.97, 2.91, P = 0.04) and the odds of hospitalization in ICU was 2.26 (OR = 2.26, 95% CI: 1.34, 3.81, P = 0.002) time higher elderly who did not have the underlying disease, which was statistically significant. Conclusion: Our results are expected to impact preventive interventions and take a more targeted approach to prioritize older patients with risk factors, rather than adopting calendar age policies as a general indicator for risk assessment.