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. 2022 Apr:68:76-82.
doi: 10.1016/j.jcrc.2021.12.007. Epub 2021 Dec 18.

Comparison of outcome and characteristics between 6343 COVID-19 patients and 2256 other community-acquired viral pneumonia patients admitted to Dutch ICUs

S Brinkman  1 , F Termorshuizen  2 , D A Dongelmans  3 , F Bakhshi-Raiez  2 , M S Arbous  4 , D W de Lange  5 , N F de Keizer  2 ; Dutch COVID-19 Research Consortium
Collaborators, Affiliations

Comparison of outcome and characteristics between 6343 COVID-19 patients and 2256 other community-acquired viral pneumonia patients admitted to Dutch ICUs

S Brinkman et al. J Crit Care. 2022 Apr.

Abstract

Purpose: Describe the differences in characteristics and outcomes between COVID-19 and other viral pneumonia patients admitted to Dutch ICUs.

Materials and methods: Data from the National-Intensive-Care-Evaluation-registry of COVID-19 patients admitted between February 15th and January 1th 2021 and other viral pneumonia patients admitted between January 1st 2017 and January 1st 2020 were used. Patients' characteristics, the unadjusted, and adjusted in-hospital mortality were compared.

Results: 6343 COVID-19 and 2256 other viral pneumonia patients from 79 ICUs were included. The COVID-19 patients included more male (71.3 vs 49.8%), had a higher Body-Mass-Index (28.1 vs 25.5), less comorbidities (42.2 vs 72.7%), and a prolonged hospital length of stay (19 vs 9 days). The COVID-19 patients had a significantly higher crude in-hospital mortality rate (Odds ratio (OR) = 1.80), after adjustment for patient characteristics and ICU occupancy rate the OR was respectively 3.62 and 3.58.

Conclusion: Higher mortality among COVID-19 patients could not be explained by patient characteristics and higher ICU occupancy rates, indicating that COVID-19 is more severe compared to other viral pneumonia. Our findings confirm earlier warnings of a high need of ICU capacity and high mortality rates among relatively healthy COVID-19 patients as this may lead to a higher mental workload for the staff.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus; Critical care; Intensive care; Mortality; Outcome; Pneumonia.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest All authors state that there were no conflict of interest. The NICE foundation pays the department of Medical Informatics to process and analyze data for the registry. This institution is not paid specifically for this study but it is part of the task agreement to perform analyses like this on data from the NICE registry.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Mean occupancy rate at ICU admission of COVID-19 (2020) and other viral pneumonia (2017–2019) patients.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Odds ratio COVID-19 compared to other viral pneumonia patients.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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