The Severity of COVID-19 and Its Determinants: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis in China

Ning Zhang, Tao Xie, Wei Ning, Rongxin He, Bin Zhu and Ying Mao
Additional contact information
Ning Zhang: School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Tao Xie: School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Wei Ning: School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Rongxin He: School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China
Bin Zhu: School of Public Health and Emergency Management, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
Ying Mao: School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-17

Abstract: To analyse the prevalence of severe and critical COVID-19 cases and its determinants, a systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted using Review Manager. Four English and two Chinese databases were used to identify and explore the relationships between the severity of COVID-19 and its determinants, with no restrictions on publication date. The odds ratio and 95% CI were combined to assess the influencing level of all factors. Twenty-three articles containing a total of 15,828 cases of COVID-19 were included in this systematic review. The prevalence of severe and critical COVID-19 cases was 17.84% and 4.9%, respectively. A total of 148 factors were identified, which included behavioural, symptom, comorbidity, laboratory, radiographic, exposure, and other factors. Among them, 35 factors could be included in the meta-analysis. Specifically, for example, the male (OR 1.55, 95% CI 1.42–1.69) and elderly (OR 1.06, 95% CI 1.03–1.10) populations tended to experience severe and critical illness. Patients with cough, dyspnea, fatigue, fever, and gastrointestinal symptoms could have severe and critical diseases. Regarding laboratory results, albumin, aspartate aminotransferase, creatinine, D-dimer, fibrinogen, neutrophils, procalcitonin, platelets, and respiratory rate were potential factors that could be used to predict the severity of COVID.

Keywords: systematic review; COVID-19; severity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/5305/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/9/5305/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:9:p:5305-:d:551386

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().