Impact of socioeconomic status on the clinical outcomes in hospitalised patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection: a retrospective analysis

AIM: A disadvantaged socioeconomic status (SES) was previously associated with higher incidence and poor outcomes both of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and infectious diseases. Inequalities in health services also have a negative effect on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) morbidity and mortality. SUBJECT AND METHODS: The study analysed the role of SES measured by the educational level (EL) in hospitalised patients with COVID-19 between 9 March 2020 and 20 September 2021 at our centre of infectious diseases. Clinical outcomes were: length of hospitalisation, in-hospital mortality and the need of intensive-care-unit (ICU) support. RESULTS: There were 566 patients included in this retrospective analysis. Baseline EL was: illiterate (5, 0.9%), primary school (99, 17.5%), secondary school (228, 40.3%), high school (211, 37.3%), degree (23, 4.1%); median age was higher in low EL (72.5 years vs 61 years, p = 0.003), comorbidity (56% in low EL, 34.6% in high EL, p < 0.001), time from the symptoms and PCR diagnosis (8.5 days in low EL, 6.5 days in high EL, p < 0.001), hospitalisation length (11.5 days in low EL, 9.5 days in high EL, p = 0.011), mortality rate (24.7% in low EL, 13.2% in high EL, p < 0.001). In the multivariate analysis there were predictors of mortality: age (OR = 4.981; 95%CI 2.172–11.427; p < 0.001), comorbidities (OR = 3.227; 95%CI 2.515–11.919; p = 0.007), ICU admission (OR = 6.997; 95%CI 2.334–31.404; p = 0.011), high vs low EL (OR = 0.761; 95%CI 0.213–0.990; p = 0.021). In survival analysis, higher EL was associated with a decreased risk of mortality up to 23.9%. CONCLUSION: Even though the EL is mainly related to the age of patients, in our analysis, it resulted as an independent predictor of in-hospital mortality and hospitalisation time. Unfortunately, this is a study focused only on hospitalised patients, and we did not examine the possible effect of EL in outpatients. Further analyses are required to confirm this suggestion and provide novel information.