Abstract
Objective: To develop an easy-to-use severity scoring tool for prehospital triage of patients infected by the coronavirus disease-2019 in resource-limited settings. Method: The cohort study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital in Karachi, from August to September 2020, and comprised adult patients of either gender who tested positive for coronavirus disease-2019 on real-time polymerase chain reaction. The scoring system and categorisation were based on validated scales for the detection of pneumonia and opinions from pulmonologists. Data was analysed using SPSS 19. Results: Of the 206 participants, 100(48.5%) were in-patients and 106(51.5%) were out-patients. There were 144(69.9%) males and 62(30.1%) females with an overall mean age of 48.4±16.2 years. After categorisation based on severity, significantly higher number of in-patients were found to be in categories III and IV (p<0.05). Conclusion: The severity scoring tool could effectively help classify coronavirus disease-2019 patients into mild, moderate and severe cases.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1959-1964 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association |
| Volume | 73 |
| Issue number | 10 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Oct 2023 |
Keywords
- COVID-19 management
- Low- and middle-income countries
- Pre-hospital triage
- Resource-limited setting
- Severity scoring tool