Time To Death And Its Predictors Among Covid-19 Patients Admitted At West Shoa Zone Public Hospitals, Oromia, Ethiopia: Retrospective Cohort

Abstract

Background: after December 31, 2019 Covid-19 emerged in China, it caused more than 550 million cases and 6.3 million fatalities worldwide. The disease has incidence death rate 14.1 per 1000 person days of person. In most of the countries less than 20 days of median time to death observed. Older age, presences of comorbidities are predictors of time to death. Objective: To assess Time to Death and its Predictors among Covid-19 patients in West Shoa Zone public hospitals, Oromia, Ethiopia from May 2020 to December 2022. Methods: A hospital-based retrospective cohort study was done at West Shoa Public Hospitals among 304 Covid-19 admitted patients from May 2020 to December 2022. Consecutive sampling technique was used to extract patient data from patient chart and entered to kobocollect tool, and analyzed using STATA version 14.0. Descriptive data were presented in terms of frequency table, graph, and figures. The time until death was determined using the median days. To calculate the survival probabilities, a Kaplan Meier survival was used. The difference in survival curves between covariate categories was compared using a Long-rank test. Cox-proportional hazard regression analysis was carried out to identify independent predictors of time to death. Hazard ratios with their 95% CI and p-value of <0.05 were computed Results: From May 2020 to December 2022, 304 Covid-19 patients admitted to west Shoa public hospitals were followed. The median time to death was 12.0 days. The overall incidence death rate was 13.24 per 1000 person days. The participants' mean age was 50.26 50.26 ± 16.71 years. Men were 178 (58.16%), and the majority (167 (54.58%) lived in urban. Being females were 70% protective (AHR=0.30 95%CI (0.11-0.79). Being late to visit health facility after complaining any of symptoms (AHR=1.12(1.04-1.19), presence of more than one comorbidity (AHR=7.58(2.73-21.08) were independent predictors of time to death. Conclusion: The overall median time to death was 12.0 days with 13.24 per 1000 person days. Our study found that being on invasive oxygen supplementation and delaying seeking medical care, having the highest qSOFA score, being severe or critical, having one or more underlying diseases, and being admitted to the intensive care unit were all substantially related with early death from Covid-19 infection.