Negative Prognostic Associations of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors Use in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients and Potential Contribution of Cardiovascular Comorbidities.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a causative agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a very contagious systemic disease dominantly affecting the respiratory tract. Recent findings oppose earlier suggestions that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) might be protective during acute SARS-CoV-2 infection, prompting the current study.
The institutional registry of a tertiary referral center was retrospectively evaluated for SSRI use and associated clinical outcomes among hospitalized COVID-19 patients with mostly severe and critical disease.
Among 1,558 patients, there were 78 (5%) exposed to SSRI during hospitalization. SSRI users in comparison to non-users did not significantly differ in their demographic characteristics, comorbidity profile or the severity of COVID-19 symptoms and associated inflammatory response at admission. In multivariate analyses adjusted for clinically meaningful variables, SSRI use was significantly associated with higher risks of death, mechanical ventilation, intensive care unit treatment, and bacteremia, whereas no significant relationship with risks of venous, arterial thrombosis, and major bleeding was present. Patients with less severe initial COVID-19 presentation, lower inflammatory burden, higher platelet count, lower cumulative comorbidity burden, presence of hyperlipidemia, atrial fibrillation, chronic heart failure and nonexposed to acetylsalicylic-acid had higher mortality associated with SSRI use.
Findings of the current study validate findings of higher mortality but also report higher tendency for respiratory deterioration, intensive care unit treatment, and bacteremia associated with SSRI use among hospitalized COVID-19 patients. These findings also suggest the potential contribution of cardiovascular comorbidities to detrimental clinical course of SSRI exposed patients.
Papic I
，Bistrovic P
，Krecak I
，Ortner Hadziabdic M
，Lucijanic M
... -
《-》
Comparative analysis of C-Reactive protein levels among Non-comorbid, Comorbid, and Multimorbid Hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
C-reactive protein (CRP) is one of the most commonly monitored inflammatory markers in patients with COVID-19 to gain insight into the inflammation level in the body and to adopt effective disease management and therapeutic strategies. COVID-19 is now less prevalent, and the study of CRP as a biomarker of inflammation still needs deeper understanding, particularly in understanding its role among patients with comorbidities, which are known to influence inflammatory responses and increase the risk of severe outcomes during acute and chronic infectious diseases. The objective of this study was to evaluate the association of major comorbidities such as ischemic heart diseases, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, hypertension, and lung infections e.g. tuberculosis with serum CRP levels in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
This study involves a retrospective observational framework to monitor CRP levels among hospitalized COVID-19 patients after getting ethical approval and patient consent. The information on underlying health conditions or comorbidities and age was collected from the patient data files. The requirement of ventilation, ICU admission, mortality & survival, and CRP levels were monitored based on their daily updates in the data file. Furthermore, the association of CRP levels was evaluated with disease severity and mortality.
In this study 618 out of 750 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, of which 62.6% were male and 37.4% were female, the levels of serum CRP were significantly influenced by age and comorbidities. No case of hospitalization was observed in children (≤ 14 years) during the study period, while 38.3% of patients belonged to the old age group (≥ 65 years). Comorbidity status varied, with 36.1% of patients without having any comorbidities, 27.8% with one, 23.6% with two, and 12.5% with three or more comorbidities. Descriptive statistics revealed that the CRP levels in the study population averaged 88.92 mg/L (SD = 63.95), ranging from < 1 mg/L to 900 mg/L, with significant variations observed across different comorbidities and age groups. CRP levels, analyzed by the Kruskal-Wallis test, showed significant variations in different age groups of COVID-19 patients (χ² = 66.741, df = 3, p < 0.001). Moreover, pairwise comparisons showed considerable differences between young and middle-aged groups (Z = -2.724, p < 0.01) and young and old age groups of COVID-19 patients (Z = -3.970, p < 0.001). The most prevalent comorbidities observed in COVID-19 patients in this study were hypertension (42.1%), diabetes (33.8%), ischemic heart disease (16.5%), asthma (11.2%), chronic kidney disease (7.9%) and Tuberculosis (1.9%). The CRP levels fluctuate and also significantly differ among different comorbidities. COVID-19 patients with diabetes were observed to have higher CRP levels than non-diabetics (mean CRP: 126.96 mg/L vs. 88.92 mg/L, Z = -5.724, p < 0.001), and those with hypertension also encountered elevated CRP (mean CRP: 355.37 vs. 276.19 mg/L, Z = -5.447, p < 0.001). Similar tendencies were detected in COVID-19 patients with ischemic heart disease (mean CRP: 385.43 mg/L, Z = -4.704, p < 0.001), chronic kidney disease (mean CRP: 412.37 mg/L, Z = -4.206, p < 0.001) as well as with tuberculosis (mean CRP: 458.08 mg/L, Z = -2.914, p < 0.01). CRP levels on days 1 and 3 of hospitalization showed a decline (88.92 mg/L to 67.89 mg/L), representative of a response to treatment to reduce the inflammation in the body. Furthermore, high levels of CRP were significantly associated with a high requirement of non-invasive ventilation (mean CRP: 110.80 mg/L vs. 76.82 mg/L, p < 0.05), mechanical ventilation (mean CRP: 134.46 mg/L vs. 77.25 mg/L, p < 0.05) and ICU admission (mean CRP: 126.96 mg/L vs. 72.79 mg/L, p < 0.05). The Cox regression analysis showed that there is a considerable association of CRP level with the expected length of hospitalization, each 1-unit increase in CRP levels was associated with a 0.6% increase in extended stay risk (hazard ratio = 1.006, 95% CI: 1.004-1.008, p < 0.001). Furthermore, the logistic regression analysis performed on CRP levels that was monitored on the first day of hospitalization, revealed that there was a 2.7% increase in mortality odds with each unit increase in CRP (odds ratio = 1.027, 95% CI: 1.022-1.033, p < 0.001), which suggest CRP as a potential mortality predictor.
Elevated CRP levels in COVID-19 patients with comorbidities like diabetes, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, and chronic kidney disease were strongly associated with increased disease severity, including higher ventilation requirements and mortality. Patients with these comorbidities showed significantly higher CRP levels, which correlated with worse outcomes, including ICU admissions and prolonged hospital stays, emphasizing the importance of CRP as a predictor for severe complications in patients with infectious diseases along with one or more comorbidities.
Shoukat M
，Khan H
，Nazish M
，Rehman A
，Raashid S
，Ahmed S
，Munir W
，Alrefaei AF
，Umair M
，Bin Abid MO
，Akhtar N
，Zaman W
，Badshah M
... -
《BMC INFECTIOUS DISEASES》
SSRI use during acute COVID-19 and risk of long COVID among patients with depression.
Long COVID, also known as post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), is a poorly understood condition with symptoms across a range of biological domains that often have debilitating consequences. Some have recently suggested that lingering SARS-CoV-2 virus particles in the gut may impede serotonin production and that low serotonin may drive many Long COVID symptoms across a range of biological systems. Therefore, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which increase synaptic serotonin availability, may be used to prevent or treat Long COVID. SSRIs are commonly prescribed for depression, therefore restricting a study sample to only include patients with depression can reduce the concern of confounding by indication.
In an observational sample of electronic health records from patients in the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) with a COVID-19 diagnosis between September 1, 2021, and December 1, 2022, and a comorbid depressive disorder, the leading indication for SSRI use, we evaluated the relationship between SSRI use during acute COVID-19 and subsequent 12-month risk of Long COVID (defined by ICD-10 code U09.9). We defined SSRI use as a prescription for SSRI medication beginning at least 30 days before acute COVID-19 and not ending before SARS-CoV-2 infection. To minimize bias, we estimated relationships using nonparametric targeted maximum likelihood estimation to aggressively adjust for high-dimensional covariates.
We analyzed a sample (n = 302,626) of patients with a diagnosis of a depressive condition before COVID-19 diagnosis, where 100,803 (33%) were using an SSRI. We found that SSRI users had a significantly lower risk of Long COVID compared to nonusers (adjusted causal relative risk 0.92, 95% CI (0.86, 0.99)) and we found a similar relationship comparing new SSRI users (first SSRI prescription 1 to 4 months before acute COVID-19 with no prior history of SSRI use) to nonusers (adjusted causal relative risk 0.89, 95% CI (0.80, 0.98)).
These findings suggest that SSRI use during acute COVID-19 may be protective against Long COVID, supporting the hypothesis that serotonin may be a key mechanistic biomarker of Long COVID.
Butzin-Dozier Z
，Ji Y
，Deshpande S
，Hurwitz E
，Anzalone AJ
，Coyle J
，Shi J
，Mertens A
，van der Laan MJ
，Colford JM Jr
，Patel RC
，Hubbard AE
，National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) Consortium
... -
《BMC Medicine》
Visitor Restrictions During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Increased Falls With Harm at a Canadian Hospital: An Exploratory Study.
Falls with harms (FWH) in hospitalized patients increase costs and lengths of stay. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in more FWH. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in increased patients in isolation with fewer visitors. Their relationship with falls has not been previously studied.
This is a retrospective, single-site, 12-month before pandemic-12-month after pandemic, observational study. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to model FWH outcome and associations with isolation and visitor restrictions.
There were 4369 isolation events and 385 FWH among 22,505 admissions during the study period. Unadjusted analysis demonstrated a FWH risk of 1.33% (95% CI 0.99, 1.67) in those who were placed in isolation compared to 1.80% (95% CI 1.60, 2.00) in those without an isolation event ( χ2 = 4.73, P = 0.03). The FWH risk during the different visitor restriction periods was significantly higher compared to the prepandemic period ( χ2 = 20.81, P < 0.001), ranging from 1.28% (95% CI 1.06, 2.50) in the prepandemic period to 2.03% (95% 1.66, 2.40) with no visitors permitted (phase A) in the pandemic period. After adjusting for potential confounders and selection bias, only phase A visitor restrictions were associated with an increased FWH risk of 0.75% (95% CI 0.32, 1.18) compared to no visitor restrictions.
Our results suggest a moderately strong association between hospitalized patient FWH risk and severe visitor restrictions. This association was muted in phases with even minor allowances for visitation. This represents the first report of the adverse effects of visitor restriction policies on patients' FWH risks.
Shennan S
，Coyle N
，Lockwood B
，DiDiodato G
... -
《-》
ResearchGate
(全网免费下载)
钛学术
(全网免费下载)
