Acute respiratory distress syndrome among patients with severe COVID-19 admitted to treatment center of Wollega University Referral Hospital, Western Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Acute respiratory distress syndrome is a life-threatening condition that has a significant effect on the occurrence of morbidity and mortality among patients with severe Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). To the best of researchers' knowledge, there is no Study on ARDS of COVID-19 in Ethiopia. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the prevalence of ARDS and associated factors among severe COVID-19 patients at Wollega University Referral Hospital.

Methods: An institution-based retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted from September 20, 2020, to June 10, 2021. Real-Time Reverse transcription-polymerase Chain Reaction (rRT-PCR) test was used to test Patients for COVID-19. Epi-data version 3.2 was used for data entry, and the final data analysis was through STATA version 14. After checking the assumption P-value<0.25 in the bivariable analysis was used to select a candidate variable for multi-variable analysis, and a p-value of <0.05 was used to declare statistical significance.

Results: In this study, the prevalence of ARDS was 32%. Almost all the patients had the clinical feature of cough (93.7%), followed by shortness of breath (79.9%), fever (77.7%), and headache (67%). Age older than 65 years (AOR = 3.35, 95%CI = 1.31, 8.55), male gender (AOR = 5.63, 95%CI = 2.15, 14.77), and low oxygen saturation level (AOR = 4.60, 95%CI = 1.15, 18.35) were the independent predictors of ARDS among severe COVID-19 patients.

Conclusion: The prevalence of ARDS among patients with severe COVID-19 was high in the study area. Therefore, elders and patients with critical conditions (low oxygen saturation) better to get special attention during COVID-19 case management to enhance good care and monitoring of the patients.

Fig 1. Sign and symptoms reported among severe COVID-19 patients admitted at WURH, 2021.

Fig 2. Percentage distribution of types of drugs used for treating severe COVID-19 patients admitted at WURH, 2021.

Fig 3. Magnitude of acute respiratory distress syndrome reported among severe COVID-19 patients included in the study at WURH, 2021.

Fig 4. Model goodness of fit.

$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \text{number}\text{of}\text{observations}=& 141\hfill \\ \hfill \text{number}\text{of}\text{groups}=& 7\hfill \\ \hfill \text{Hosmer-Lemeshow}\text{chi}2\left(5\right)=& 0.95\hfill \\ \hfill \text{Prob}>\text{chi}2=& 0.9667\hfill \end{array}$.