Using machine learning to create a decision tree model to predict outcomes of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines

The aim of this study was to create a decision tree model with machine learning to predict the outcomes of COVID-19 cases from data publicly available in the Philippine Department of Health (DOH) COVID Data Drop.

The study design was a cross-sectional records review of the DOH COVID Data Drop for 25 August 2020. Resolved cases that had either recovered or died were used as the final data set. Machine learning processes were used to generate, train and validate a decision tree model.

A list of 132 939 resolved COVID-19 cases was used. The notification rates and case fatality rates were higher among males (145.67 per 100 000 and 2.46%, respectively). Most COVID-19 cases were clustered among people of working age, and older cases had higher case fatality rates. The majority of cases were from the National Capital Region (590.20 per 100 000), and the highest case fatality rate (5.83%) was observed in Region VII. The decision tree model prioritized age and history of hospital admission as predictors of mortality. The model had high accuracy (81.42%), sensitivity (81.65%), specificity (81.41%) and area under the curve (0.876) but a poor F-score (16.74%).

The model predicted higher case fatality rates among older people. For cases aged > 51 years, a history of hospital admission increased the probability of COVID-19-related death. We recommend that more comprehensive primary COVID-19 data sets be used to create more robust prognostic models.