Stroke in critically ill patients with respiratory failure due to COVID-19: Disparities between low-middle and high-income countries

Faculty of Medicine

Assiut University

Stroke in critically ill patients with respiratory failure due to COVID-19: Disparities between low-middle and high-income countries

Research Authors
Denise Battaglini, Thu-Lan Kelly, Matthew Griffee, Jonathon Fanning, Lavienraj Premraj, Glenn Whitman, Diego Bastos Porto, Rakesh Arora, David Thomson, Paolo Pelosi, Nicole M White, Gianluigi Li Bassi, Jacky Suen, John F Fraser, Chiara Robba, Sung-Min Cho
Research Date
Research Journal
Heart & lung
Research Member
Aliae Abd Rabou Mohamed Hussein
Research Publisher
Mosby
Research Vol
68
Research_Pages
131-144
Research Abstract

Purpose

We aimed to compare the incidence of stroke in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) versus high-income countries (HICs) in critically ill patients with COVID-19 and its impact on in-hospital mortality.

Methods

International observational study conducted in 43 countries. Stroke and mortality incidence rates and rate ratios (IRR) were calculated per admitted days using Poisson regression. Inverse probability weighting (IPW) was used to address the HICs vs. LMICs imbalance for confounders.

Results

23,738 patients [20,511(86.4 %) HICs vs. 3,227(13.6 %) LMICs] were included. The incidence stroke/1000 admitted-days was 35.7 (95 %CI = 28.4–44.9) LMICs and 17.6 (95 %CI = 15.8–19.7) HICs; ischemic 9.47 (95 %CI = 6.57–13.7) LMICs, 1.97 (95 %CI = 1.53, 2.55) HICs; hemorrhagic, 7.18 (95 %CI = 4.73–10.9) LMICs, and 2.52 (95 %CI = 2.00–3.16) HICs; unspecified stroke type 11.6 (95 %CI = 7.75–17.3