Risk factors associated with increased Covid-19 death: A review study

Some factors have been found to be associated with increased mortality from Covid-19. This study is a systematic review and meta-analysis aimed at finding the factors associated with the increased mortality among Covid-19 patients.

Systematic searches of Medline/PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases were performed using keywords that correlated mortality, including relative risk (RR), risk ratio, and odds ratio(OR). A total of 20 articles were included in this study. Four factors including age (years) with OR, underlying diabetes with OR, gender (male vs. female) with OR, and gender (male vs. female) with OR which reported by in more than two studies, were meta-analyzed.

A total of 65 factors were identified that are associated with an increase in death from Covid-19. The most important factors were: History of diabetes with an odds ratio of 12.23 (4.13–36.27); Hospitalization in the intensive care unit with a relative risk of 5.79 (4.00-8.38); and requiring which reported by mechanical ventilation with a relative risk of 7.36 (5.06–10.7). These factors can be classified into three categories: 1) individual and genetic factors 2) underlying diseases and conditions, and 3) clinical and laboratory findings.

Having identified these risk faktors, it is necessary to pay more attention on preventive measures and raising awarness among  people with these risk factors. This findings may help health care organizations to prioritize high risk groups for screening and triaging for Covid-19 and for receiving Covid-19 vaccine.