Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Observational Study
. 2022 Aug 10;12(8):e057852.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-057852.

Diagnostic yield of screening for SARS-CoV-2 among patients admitted to hospital for alternate diagnoses: an observational cohort study

Philip Davis  1 , Rhonda Rosychuk  2 , Jeffrey P Hau  3   4 , Ivy Cheng  5   6 , Andrew D McRae  7 , Raoul Daoust  8 , Eddy Lang  7 , Joel Turner  9 , Jaspreet Khangura  10 , Patrick T Fok  11 , Maja Stachura  4 , Baljeet Brar  4 , Corinne M Hohl  4 ; CCEDRRN investigators, and for the Network of Canadian Emergency Researchers and the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group
Affiliations
Observational Study

Diagnostic yield of screening for SARS-CoV-2 among patients admitted to hospital for alternate diagnoses: an observational cohort study

Philip Davis et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the diagnostic yield of screening patients for SARS-CoV-2 who were admitted with a diagnosis unrelated to COVID-19 and to identify risk factors for positive tests.

Design: Cohort from the Canadian COVID-19 Emergency Department Rapid Response Network registry.

Setting: 30 acute care hospitals across Canada.

Participants: Patients hospitalised for non-COVID-19-related diagnoses who were tested for SARS-CoV-2 between 1 March and 29 December 2020.

Main outcome: Positive nucleic acid amplification test for SARS-CoV-2.

Outcome measure: Diagnostic yield.

Results: We enrolled 15 690 consecutive eligible adults who were admitted to hospital without clinically suspected COVID-19. Among these patients, 122 tested positive for COVID-19, resulting in a diagnostic yield of 0.8% (95% CI 0.64% to 0.92%). Factors associated with a positive test included presence of fever, being a healthcare worker, having a positive household contact or institutional exposure, and living in an area with higher 7-day average incident COVID-19 cases.

Conclusions: Universal screening of hospitalised patients for COVID-19 across two pandemic waves had a low diagnostic yield and should be informed by individual-level risk assessment in addition to regional COVID-19 prevalence.

Trial registration number: NCT04702945.

Keywords: COVID-19; Diagnostic microbiology; EPIDEMIOLOGY; Organisation of health services.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Patient flow diagram. ED, emergency department.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The 7-day working average of COVID-19 NAAT positivity over the study period across sites. NAAT, nucleic acid amplification test.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Diagnostic yield by presenting symptoms.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Diagnostic yield by ED diagnosis. ED, emergency department; NYD, not yet determined.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Puylaert CAJ, Scheijmans JCG, Borgstein ABJ, et al. . Yield of screening for COVID-19 in asymptomatic patients before elective or emergency surgery using chest CT and RT-PCR (SCOUT): multicenter study. Ann Surg 2020;272:919–24. 10.1097/SLA.0000000000004218 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sutton D, Fuchs K, D'Alton M, D’Alton M, et al. . Universal screening for SARS-CoV-2 in women admitted for delivery. N Engl J Med 2020;382:2163–4. 10.1056/NEJMc2009316 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ravani P, Saxinger L, Chandran U, et al. . COVID-19 screening of asymptomatic patients admitted through emergency departments in Alberta: a prospective quality-improvement study. CMAJ Open 2020;8:E887–94. 10.9778/cmajo.20200191 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Goldfarb IT, Diouf K, Barth WH, et al. . Universal SARS-CoV-2 testing on admission to the labor and delivery unit: low prevalence among asymptomatic obstetric patients. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2020;41:1095–6. 10.1017/ice.2020.255 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ossami Saidy RR, Globke B, Pratschke J, et al. . Successful implementation of preventive measures leads to low relevance of SARS‐CoV‐2 in liver transplant patients: observations from a German outpatient department. Transpl Infect Dis [Internet] 2020;22 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

Associated data