Outcomes of COVID-19 Among Hospitalized Health Care Workers in North America

January 28, 2021

Jeong Yun Yang, Michael D. Parkins, Andrew Canakis, Olga C. Aroniadis, Dhiraj Yadav, Rebekah E. Dixon, Joseph Elmunzer, Nauzer Forbes.

JAMA NETWORK

The majority of health professionals (HCs) are at high risk of contracting the COVID-19 disease due to their greater exposure to it, however it was unknown if this entailed a greater risk of contracting the disease with worse results than those of the general population, so it was proposed to study whether being part of the HCW had any relationship with the results of patients hospitalized for COVID-19. With this retrospective, observational cohort study, COVID-19 positive adult hospitalized patients were included in 36 centers in North America from 4/15/20 to 6/5/20. For data collection, their comorbidities, symptoms, treatments, the results after the disease, as well as whether they were TS or not, were taken into account. As the main outcome, it was taken into account whether mechanical ventilation was required or the death of the patient. 1790 patients were considered, of which 127 were health professionals and 1663 from the general population, for which a multivariate logistic regression was generated to adjust the probability ratio, giving in the end a ratio of 3: 1, having to be adjusted with a cohort matching by propensity score, resulting in that 122, hospitalized HCWs with COVID-19 were matched with 366 non-TS with COVID-19. The results were significantly different for healthcare workers compared to non-healthcare workers. Therefore, being a health worker was not associated with worse results of the disease, but rather it was associated with a shorter hospitalization time and a lower probability of admission to the intensive care unit. An important limitation is that it was not possible to identify whether or not the health worker was exposed to COVID-19, it is mentioned that many contracted the disease in the community or on a trip.

Yang JY, Parkins MD, Canakis A, et al. Outcomes of COVID-19 Among Hospitalized Health Care Workers in North America. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(1):e2035699. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.35699

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