Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33619194›Full record

ArticleBMJ open2021

Use of the first National Early Warning Score recorded within 24 hours of admission to estimate the risk of in-hospital mortality in unplanned COVID-19 patients: a retrospective cohort study.

Donald Richardson, Muhammad Faisal, Massimo Fiori, Kevin Beatson, Mohammed Mohammed

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in BMJ open, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
20citing papers in PubMed, 2 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

20 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
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  9. Gene Expression Risk Scores for COVID-19 Illness Severity.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2023
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  17. Modified PRIEST score for identification of very low-risk COVID patients.The American journal of emergency medicine · 2021
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  18. Gene Expression Risk Scores for COVID-19 Illness Severity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2021
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Donald RichardsonRenal Medicine, York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, York, UK.
Muhammad FaisalFaculty of Health Studies, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK.ORCID 0000-0003-4885-4251
Massimo FioriYork Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, York, UK.
Kevin BeatsonYork Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, York, UK.
Mohammed MohammedFaculty of Health Studies, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK m.a.mohammed5@bradford.ac.uk.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectivesAlthough the National Early Warning Score (NEWS) and its latest version NEWS2 are recommended for monitoring deterioration in patients admitted to hospital, little is known about their performance in COVID-19 patients. We aimed to compare the performance of the NEWS and NEWS2 in patients with COVID-19 versus those without during the first phase of the pandemic.

designA retrospective cross-sectional study.

settingTwo acute hospitals (Scarborough and York) are combined into a single dataset and analysed collectively.

participantsAdult (≥18 years) non-elective admissions discharged between 11 March 2020 and 13 June 2020 with an index or on-admission NEWS2 electronically recorded within ±24 hours of admission to predict mortality at four time points (in-hospital, 24 hours, 48 hours and 72 hours) in COVID-19 versus non-COVID-19 admissions.

resultsOut of 6480 non-elective admissions, 620 (9.6%) had a diagnosis of COVID-19. They were older (73.3 vs 67.7 years), more often male (54.7% vs 50.1%), had higher index NEWS (4 vs 2.5) and NEWS2 (4.6 vs 2.8) scores and higher in-hospital mortality (32.1% vs 5.8%). The c-statistics for predicting in-hospital mortality in COVID-19 admissions was significantly lower using NEWS (0.64 vs 0.74) or NEWS2 (0.64 vs 0.74), however, these differences reduced at 72hours (NEWS: 0.75 vs 0.81; NEWS2: 0.71 vs 0.81), 48 hours (NEWS: 0.78 vs 0.81; NEWS2: 0.76 vs 0.82) and 24hours (NEWS: 0.84 vs 0.84; NEWS2: 0.86 vs 0.84). Increasing NEWS2 values reflected increased mortality, but for any given value the absolute risk was on average 24% higher (eg, NEWS2=5: 36% vs 9%).

conclusionsThe index or on-admission NEWS and NEWS2 offers lower discrimination for COVID-19 admissions versus non-COVID-19 admissions. The index NEWS2 was not proven to be better than the index NEWS. For each value of the index NEWS/NEWS2, COVID-19 admissions had a substantially higher risk of mortality than non-COVID-19 admissions which reflects the increased baseline mortality risk of COVID-19.

Indexed as

COVID-19Early Warning ScoreHospital MortalityAdultAgedCross-Sectional StudiesFemaleHumansMalePatient AdmissionRetrospective StudiesRisk AssessmentUnited Kingdomhealth informaticshealth & safetyquality in health care

Identifiers

PMID33619194
PMCPMC7902318

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LicenceCC BY-NC
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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.