Evidence-Based Prediction of COVID-19 Severity in Hospitalized Children
Shahnaz Armin1, Mohammadreza Mirkarimi2, Zahra Pourmoghaddas3
1Pediatric Infections Research Center, Research Institute for Children's Health, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Insights
Predicting COVID-19 severity in hospitalized children is possible using clinical and lab data. Key indicators like SGOT, CRP, and O2sat help determine disease progression in pediatric patients.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Infectious Diseases
- Clinical Virology
- Epidemiology
Background:
- COVID-19 significantly impacts children, necessitating methods to predict disease severity.
- Understanding risk factors and clinical predictors in pediatric populations is crucial for effective management.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify clinical and paraclinical factors for predicting COVID-19 severity in hospitalized children.
- To aid in clinical decision-making for pediatric COVID-19 patients.
Main Methods:
- Cross-sectional study analyzing medical records of 238 hospitalized pediatric COVID-19 cases (March-October 2020).
- Data included demographics, underlying conditions, symptoms, and laboratory tests.
- Statistical analysis to correlate variables with disease severity.
Main Results:
- Male patients constituted 59% of cases; the 1-5 year age group was most affected (34.6%).
- 38% of hospitalized children had underlying diseases.
- Mortality rate was 5% among the studied pediatric cohort.
Conclusions:
- Clinical and laboratory markers including SGOT, CRP, ALC, LDH, WBC, O2sat, and ferritin can predict COVID-19 severity in children.
- These predictors are valuable for clinical decision-making in pediatric COVID-19 cases.
Objective:
In this study, by using clinical and paraclinical characteristics, we have aimed to predict the severity of the disease in hospitalized COVID-19 children.
Method:
This cross-sectional study was conducted on medical records about epidemiologic data, underlying diseases, symptoms, and laboratory tests from March to October, 2020, on 238 hospitalized confirmed COVID-19 paediatric cases in several children's hospitals of Tehran, Ahwaz, Isfahan, and Bandar Abbas.
Results:
From 238 patients, 140 (59%) were male and most of them were in the age group of 1 to 5 years (34.6%). Among all hospitalized patients, 38% had an underlying disease and in total, 5% of cases were expired.
Conclusion:
Determining patient severity is essential for appropriate clinical decision making; our results showed that in hospitalized pediatric patients, by using several variables such as SGOT, CRP, ALC, LDH, WBC, O2sat, and ferritin, we can use clinical and paraclinical characteristics for predicting the severity of COVID-19.
