This is shown by an updated analysis by Gesundheit Österreich GmbH (GÖG). The GÖG also examined previous illnesses for their hospitalization risk.
Of the intensive care patients, Covid was noted as the main illness in 72 percent of the discharge diagnoses analyzed. With the additional secondary diagnoses with Covid association, a corona infection was decisive in a total of 81 to 88 percent of all intensive care stays. For example, stays with the main diagnosis “viral pneumonia, unspecified” count as a Covid association, explain the GÖG experts. If you also look at the days on the floor in intensive care units that are relevant for the system load, it also shows that 87 to 91 percent of the days have a Covid association.
Covid-19 is also taken into account as a secondary diagnosis for GÖG analyses, as the GÖG emphasizes that the differentiation between main and secondary diagnoses is often unsuitable for identifying the clinical symptoms of Covid-19. In the case of hospital stays with Covid-19 as a secondary diagnosis, it has been shown that around a third of the 2,269 different main diagnoses to date can potentially be associated with Covid from a medical point of view. Excluding cases with Covid-19 in a secondary diagnosis would “result in a significant underreporting of Covid-19 cases”.
Kidney disease and COPD increase risk of death
In a preprint study (prior to peer review by experts), several GÖG experts also dealt with the identification of risk factors for hospitalization and death in Covid hospital patients in Austria. Hemiplegia (complete paralysis of one side of the body) or paraplegia (complete paralysis of the lower extremities), COPD and diabetes were identified as the strongest risk factors in relation to hospitalization. In terms of in-hospital mortality, it is hemiplegia or paraplegia, kidney disease and COPD as pre-existing conditions that increase the risk of death.
Intensive care treatments often for kidney disease, COPD and diabetes
Kidney diseases, diabetes and COPD are the greatest risk factors for the risk of intensive care as pre-existing conditions for Covid patients. This means that the chance for a person with one of these pre-existing conditions to have a Covid-19 intensive care stay increases by 53 to The experts calculated that the increase was 76 percent compared to a person without this previous illness. There are significant gender differences in diabetes, where women with this pre-existing condition have a significantly higher risk of an intensive care stay than men.
All patients with Covid-19 who were admitted to Austrian hospitals between January 2020 and December 2021 and had an in-patient stay between 2015 and 2019 were included in the analysis of previous illnesses. In addition, there was a control group with the same characteristics in terms of age, gender and region. Since the study is limited to inpatients, it is only representative of people who had been hospitalized in the five years before the pandemic (around 40 percent of the population). Due to the focus on vulnerable population groups, however, this limitation is acceptable, the experts state. The results of the Austrian study are largely consistent with the international literature.
Source: Nachrichten
