Retrospective Analysis of Factors Associated with a Prolonged Nucleic Acid Conversion Time in Patients with COVID-19...

The aim of this study was to explore the related factors for prolonged nucleic acid conversion time (NCT) in patients with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, so as to help to prevent and control the epidemic.

This study retrospectively included 307 patients diagnosed with mild to moderate COVID-19 who were hospitalized in Shanghai International Exhibition Fangcang Shelter Hospital. Nucleic acid amplification detection method was used to detect 2019-nCoV nucleic acid in nasopharyngeal swab samples. Binary logistic regression models were developed to identify independent risk factors associated with the time to nucleic acid conversion, utilizing the Kaplan-Meier test for survival analysis.

In total, 307 patients were included in the study, with the median of NCT was 8 (6, 10) days, ranging 2 to 24 days, by which patients were divided into early NCT (<8 days) and late NCT (≥8 days). There was no difference between early and late NCT groups in gender, nationality, diabetes, previous sleep disorder, dyssomnia and depression (P = 0.222, 0.552, 0.118, 0.501, 0.133 and 0.603, respectively). There was a statistically significant difference between the two groups at different age levels, hypertension, anxiety (P=0.002, 0.001, 0.034). In the late NCT group, compared to early NCT, more patients with symptoms(37.5 vs 19.0%; P < 0.001), only cough and expectoration (29.4 vs 14.3; P=0.001), myodynia (13.8 vs 4.1; P=0.014) and fatigue (13.8 vs 4.1; P=0.003) were statistically different. There was no significant difference in the presence or absence of vaccination and the number of vaccination between the two groups(P=0.340 and 0.435).

Our study showed that age, hypertension, and anxiety were independent risk factors associated with the NCT in patients with COVID-19. Potential risk factors should be taken into consideration for the strategy of quarantining infected patients.