Epidemiological profile of COVID-19 deaths in the public hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

The aim of this study was to describe the epidemiological profiles of the Covid-19 deaths in the public reference hospital Ronaldo Gazolla Hospital ranging from their age, sex, race, cause of death and length of stay until death. Retrospective descriptive observational study with patients who died with a positive COVID-19 diagnosis who presented themselves to this center during the outbreak of April 2020. Our sample included 261 deaths and information reported includes age, sex, and race, cause of death and length of stay until death. All cases were confirmed by diagnostic outcomes, using nasopharyngeal swab samples were collected for extracting 2019-nCoV RNA through the technique of real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Our sample was comprised of 62.1% men, with a mean age of 60.1 (SD=16.1) years. A proportion of 43.3% (n=113) of the patients were brown, 16.9% (n=42) were black and 40.6% (n=106) were white. The median of duration of hospital stay was 3.8days (1.6; 6.5). Most deaths were caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome (62.1%), followed by sepsis (24.1%). This study showed that most COVID-19 deaths at the public reference hospital occurred due to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), with a higher proportion of men, brown race and an average age of 60years. The short time of hospital stay between hospitalization and death draws attention to the deficiency of the public health system of Rio de Janeiro city.