National Early Warning Score 2 (NEWS2) better predicts critical Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) illness than COVID-GRAM, a multi-centre study

PURPOSE: Clinical scores to rapidly assess the severity illness of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) could be considered of help for clinicians. Recently, a specific score (named COVID-GRAM) for severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, based on a nationwide Chinese cohort, has been proposed. We routinely applied the National Early Warning Score 2 (NEWS2) to predict critical COVID-19. Aim of this study is to compare NEWS2 and COVID-GRAM score. METHODS: We retrospectively analysed data of 121 COVID-19 patients admitted in two Clinics of Infectious Diseases in the Umbria region, Italy. The primary outcome was critical COVID-19 illness defined as admission to the intensive care unit, invasive ventilation, or death. Accuracy of the scores was evaluated with the area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUROC). Differences between scores were confirmed used Hanley–McNeil test. RESULTS: The NEWS2 AUROC curve measured 0.87 (standard error, SE 0.03; 95% CI 0.80–0.93; p < 0.0001). The COVID-GRAM score AUROC curve measured 0.77 (SE 0.04; 95% CI 0.68–0.85; p < 0.0001). Hanley–McNeil test showed that NEWS2 better predicted severe COVID-19 (Z = 2.03). CONCLUSIONS: The NEWS2 showed superior accuracy to COVID-GRAM score for prediction of critical COVID-19 illness. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s15010-021-01620-x.