Association between Dementia and Clinical Outcome after COVID-19: A Nationwide Cohort Study with Propensity Score Matched Control in South Korea

• Published in: Psychiatry investigation 2021, 18(6), , pp.523-529
• Main Authors: Wang, Sheng-Min, Park, See Hyun, Kim, Nak-Young, Kang, Dong Woo, Um, Yoo Hyun, Han, Seunghoon, Park, Sung-Soo, Lim, Hyun Kook
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Original; 정신과학
• ISSN: 1738-3684; 1976-3026
• DOI: 10.30773/pi.2021.0064

Objective Despite a high prevalence of dementia in older adults hospitalized with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection (SARS-CoV-2), or so called COVID-19, research investigating association between preexisting diagnoses of dementia and prognosis of COVID-19 is scarce. We aimed to investigate treatment outcome of patients with dementia after COVID-19. Methods We explored a nationwide cohort with a total of 2,800 subjects older than 50 years who were diagnosed with COVID-19 between January and April 2020. Among them, 223 patients had underlying dementia (dementia group). We matched 1:1 for each dementia- non-dementia group pair yielding 223 patients without dementia (no dementia group) using propensity score matching. Results Mortality rate after COVID-19 was higher in dementia group than in no dementia group (33.6% vs. 20.2%, p=0.002). Dementia group had higher proportion of patients requiring invasive ventilatory support than no dementia group (34.1% vs. 22.0%, p=0.006). Multivariable analysis showed that dementia group had a higher risk of mortality than no dementia group (odds ratio=3.05, p