Abstract
Background: Gender disparities have previously been reported to influence outcomes of various illnesses, including viral illness such as respiratory syncytial virus and COVID-19 virus. Males have previously been found to be more susceptible to infection and complications of such diseases.
Objective: The idea that there are differential impacts by gender on morbidity and mortality of COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospital as well as identifying any confounding factors that might contribute to such disparities were investigated.
Design: Retrospective study of patients 65 years and older admitted with COVID-19 infection between February 2020 and February 2022 were included.
Setting: Community teaching hospital in Michigan.
Participants: All consecutive patients , age 18 years and older, all gender and race with a positive diagnosis for COVID-19 were included in the study.
Measurements: Incidence of complications and mortality were measured in both males and females and differences calculated.
Results: The 963 patients were divided into two groups: males (n= 483), and females (n=480). The mortality rate for males (n=341, 70.6%), and females (n=345, 71.9%) were similar. However, there were more females with less than 4 associated comorbid conditions compared to males (80.8% vs 70.0%, p=0.0001) and the females had a higher mortality rate (71.9% vs. 70.6%, p=0.66). There were more males with 4 or more associated comorbid conditions and this was significantly higher than in the female group (30.0% vs 19.2%, p=0.0001).
Limitations: There was no data collected following discharge from the hospital in regard to late complications.
Conclusions: Kidney disease is a significant predictor of mortality of our COVID-19 patients admitted to our hospital, additionally COPD had a similar impact on mortality but only in the female patients.