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Meta-Analysis
. 2021 Oct;75(10):e14640.
doi: 10.1111/ijcp.14640. Epub 2021 Aug 1.

Effect of age of COVID-19 inpatient on the severity of the disease: A meta-analysis

Shaoqing Chai  1 , Yan Li  2 , Xuemei Li  2 , Jie Tan  2 , Mohamed E A Abdelrahim  3 , Xiaoxiao Xu  2
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Effect of age of COVID-19 inpatient on the severity of the disease: A meta-analysis

Shaoqing Chai et al. Int J Clin Pract. 2021 Oct.

Abstract

Background: Clinical symptoms of adults and paediatric inpatients with COVID-19 disease are conflicting. This meta-analysis was conducted to assess the effect of age of COVID-19 inpatient on the severity of the disease.

Methods: A systematic literature search up to January 2021 was performed and 5 studies included 910 inpatients with COVID-19 disease at the baseline of the study; 773 of them were adult inpatients, and 137 of them were paediatric inpatients. They reported a comparison between adults and children with COVID-19 in the level of symptomatic severity, clinical features, computed tomography (CT) results and laboratory results. Odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated assessing the effect of age of COVID-19 inpatient on the severity of the disease using the dichotomous method with a random or fixed-effect model.

Results: Adults with COVID-19 disease had significantly lower number of mild cases (OR, 0.18; 95% CI, 0.04-0.77, P = .02); higher number severe cases (OR, 4.90; 95% CI, 2.03-11.83, P < .001); higher number of cases with fever (OR, 4.14; 95% CI, 2.31-7.43, P < .001); and higher number of cases with CT positive COVID-19 disease (OR, 2.04; 95% CI, 1.17-3.55, P = .001) compared with children. However, no significant difference was found between adults and children in number of cases with shortness of breath (OR, 1.44; 95% CI, 0.41-5.04, P = .57); dry cough (OR, 1.77; 95% CI, 0.64-4.93, P = .27); leukopenia (OR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.47-1.66, P = .71); lymphopenia (OR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.49-1.88, P = .91); high platelets (OR, 0.41; 95% CI, 0.17-1.02, P = .05); and high D-dimer (OR, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.43-1.56, P = .54).

Conclusions: Adults with COVID-19 disease have a much higher level of symptomatic severity, fever and CT-positive COVID-19 disease than children. However, as shown in our results, the laboratory data were similar in both groups.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Schematic diagram of the study procedure
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Forest plot of the effect of age on (A) number of mild cases, (B) number of severe cases
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Forest plot of the effect of age on (A) number of cases with shortness of breath, (B) number of cases with fever, (C) number of cases with shortness of dry cough
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Forest plot of the effect of age on the number of cases with CT positive results
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Forest plot of the effect of age on (A) number of cases with leukopenia, (B) number of cases with lymphopenia, (C) number of cases with shortness of high platelets, (D) number of cases with shortness of dry high D‐dimer
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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