Factors contributing to poor COVID-19 outcomes in diabetic patients: Findings from a single-center cohort study

Abstract

Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a frequent comorbidity in patients infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The risk of developing severe or critical COVID-19 and higher mortality was observed to be increased in diabetic patients hospitalized due to COVID-19. In this study we aimed to find out the impact of clinical characteristics, comorbidities, laboratory results, and complications on the outcomes of diabetic patients hospitalized due to COVID-19. This article is a retrospective cohort study that include diabetic patients hospitalized with COVID-19 infection. A definition of diabetes was based on the past history of diabetes or if the HbA1c was 6.5% or higher. Demographics, clinical characteristics, comorbidities, laboratory results, and complications were extracted from the electronic medical records. The mortality rate increased with increasing age (from 5.56% in younger patients to 46% in the elderly) and with severity (from 25.71% in moderate cases to 43.77% in critical cases). We found that a critical severity on admission (OR: 5.26, 95% CI: 1.28–21.66, p = 0.0214), a history of stroke (OR: 8.37, 95% CI: 2.2–31.88, p = 0.0018), and low calcium levels on admission (OR: 2.23, 95% CI: 1.01–4.91, p = 0.0475) were significant risk factors predicting higher COVID-19 mortality in diabetic patients. The findings of this study suggest that reduced calcium levels could potentially indicate higher mortality due to COVID-19 in patients with DM. Furthermore, careful monitoring of diabetic patients hospitalized due to COVID-19 infection, especially those with critical disease severity or those with a history of stroke, may improve their outcome and lessen mortality.