Factors Associated with Pneumonia in Patients Hospitalized with COVID-19 and the Role of Vaccination

• Published in: Vaccines (Basel) 2023-08, Vol.11 (8), p.1342
• Main Authors: Zizza, Antonella, Sedile, Raffaella, Bagordo, Francesco, Panico, Alessandra, Guido, Marcello, Grassi, Tiziana, Banchelli, Federico, Grima, Pierfrancesco
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bacterial pneumonia; Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; comorbidities; Comorbidity; COVID-19; COVID-19 vaccines; Demographic aspects; Diabetes; Diabetes mellitus; Diabetes mellitus (non-insulin dependent); Dialysis; Drug dosages; Hospitalization; Hospitals; Hypertension; Infections; Kidney diseases; Obesity; Pandemics; Patients; Pneumonia; Prevention; Regression analysis; Risk factors; SARS-CoV-2; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Signs and symptoms; vaccination; Vaccines; Variables; Viral diseases; Viral infections
• ISSN: 2076-393X; 2076-393X
• DOI: 10.3390/vaccines11081342

Patients with COVID-19 can develop different forms of the illness with more or less severe symptoms. A 2-year retrospective cohort study was conducted to evaluate the factors associated with the development of pneumonia in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 from March 2020 to February 2022. A total of 385 patients (59.0% males) with a mean age of 69.0 ± 16.0 years were included. At hospital admission, 318 patients (82.6%) reported one or more comorbidities, namely 201 (52.2%) subjects were affected by hypertension, 98 (25.5%) type 2 diabetes, 84 (21.8%) obesity, 36 (9.4%) cancer, and 14 (3.6%) suffered from kidney disease and were being treated with dialysis, and 76 (19.7%) resulted in being vaccinated with a higher prevalence of BNT162b2 vaccine (15.0%). Pneumonia was diagnosed in 276 (71.7%) patients. Multivariate regression analysis showed that pneumonia in COVID-19 patients was positively associated with type 2 diabetes (OR 1.81; 95% CI 1.00–3.27), obesity (OR 2.52; 95% CI 1.27–4.98), and negatively with hypertension (OR 0.58; 95% CI 0.35–0.96). Vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 resulted in a strongly protective factor against the development of pneumonia in COVID-19 patients (OR 0.49; 95% CI 0.28–0.85).