COVID-19 Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 24 pp 24522—24534
Mortality in an Italian nursing home during COVID-19 pandemic: correlation with gender, age, ADL, vitamin D supplementation, and limitations of the diagnostic tests
- 1 IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Department of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases, Milan, Italy
- 2 IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Laboratory of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases, Cusano Milanino, Italy
- 3 Department of Medical Biotechnology and Translational Medicine, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
- 4 IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Anatomic Pathology Unit, Milan, Italy
- 5 IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Laboratory of Geriatric and Oncologic Neuroendocrinology Research, Milan, Italy
- 6 IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy, Milan, Italy
- 7 IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Department of Geriatrics and Cardiovascular Medicine, Milan, Italy
Received: October 14, 2020 Accepted: November 16, 2020 Published: December 22, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.202307How to Cite
Copyright: © 2020 Cangiano et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic caused an increased mortality in nursing homes due to its quick spread and the age-related high lethality.
Results: We observed a two-month mortality of 40%, compared to 6.4% in the previous year. This increase was seen in both COVID-19 positive (43%) and negative (24%) residents, but 8 patients among those testing negative on the swab, tested positive on serological tests. Increased mortality was associated with male gender, older age, no previous vitamin D supplementation and worse “activities of daily living (ADL)” scores, such as Barthel index, Tinetti scale and S.OS.I.A. classification.
Conclusion: Our data confirms a higher geriatric mortality due to COVID-19. Negative residents also had higher mortality, which we suspect is secondary to preanalytical error and a low sensitivity of the swab test in poorly compliant subjects. Male gender, older age and low scores on ADL scales (probably due to immobility) are risk factors for COVID-19 related mortality. Finally, mortality was inversely associated with vitamin D supplementation.
Design: In this observational study, we described the two-month mortality among the 157 residents (age 60-100) of a nursing home after Sars-CoV-2 spreading, reporting the factors associated with the outcome. We also compared the diagnostic tests for Sars-CoV-2.