Correlation of qSOFA with Severity of COVID-19 Infection Assessed on Admission at Tertiary Care Hospital in Lahore

Introduction: The COVID-19 crisis is continuously taxing the world with a huge impact on mortality, morbidity and disease related mental stress. COVID-19 has a variable presentation encompassing from simple myalgias to development of ARDS. Early detection of patients with severe COVID 19 infection by utilizing simple bed side clinical tool like qSOFA, which has been previously used for detection of severity of sepsis could help us in early triage and subsequent management of these patients in specialized dedicated units of the hospital. Thus help in limiting the mortality and morbidity because of this deadly contagion.  Aims & Objectives: To correlate the severity of qSOFA score with the clinical severity and outcome of COVID-19 infection at presentation among admitted patients in tertiary care hospitals of Lahore. Place and duration of study: This study was conducted simultaneously at three tertiary care hospitals of Lahore, including Lahore General Hospital, Jinnah Hospital Lahore and Chaudhary Muhammad Akram Teaching and Research Hospital, Lahore. Material & Methods: A retrospective descriptive study on 120 RT PCR positive confirmed COVID-19 patients of both genders, more than 18 years of age. Case records of patients admitted in General Corona ward, Isolation wards, HDUs and ICUs were analyzed. The data analysis was done in SPSS version 20. Factors including blood pressure, respiratory rate, and conscious level were used to calculate the qSOFA score. COVID 19 infection was divided into mild, moderate, severe and critically ill. The relationship of qSOFA score was studied with severity of COVID-19 infection, outcome of disease and age by using the Pearson correlation. Results: Eighty-four (70%) patients were male and thirty-six (30%) were female, with mean age of 59.42 ± 13.49 years. Sixty-eight, twenty-five, five and 0.8 percent patients had critical, severe, moderate and mild disease respectively. Most frequent comorbids found were hypertension, diabetes, ischemic heart disease. A statistically significant correlation was observed between qSOFA with severity of COVID 19, age, and outcome of infection at the level of 0.01. Conclusion: qSOFA is a reliable bedside tool to measure severity and predict outcome of COVID 19 infection.