ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TECHNIQUES IN PREDICTION OF COVID-19 MORTALITY AND ITS RELATED FACTORS: A MULTI-CENTER STUDY

Abstract

Predictive artificial intelligence (AI) models for the assessment of factors and trends related to disease prevalence, prognosis, and the risk prediction of mortality in the early phases, seem to be effective techniques. Machine learning (ML) algorithms as a branch of AI methods have had a considerable role in controlling and management of COVID-19 and previous pandemics. The present study estimates the mortality risk among COVID-19 patients based on ML algorithms, prediction of outcomes in new cases, and also determines the top significant features related to morality in the patients. In this retrospective research, 7115 patients with confirmed COVID-19 disease were included in the study. The information was collected from 35 different hospitals across Khorasan-Razavi province, Northeast of Iran during 20 February 2020 - 21 June 2021. We employed random forests (RF), decision tree (DT), artificial neural networks (ANN), support vector machines (SVM), logistic regression (LR), and boosted trees (BT) ML algorithms. Our findings indicated that the RF model had better performance in different criteria. The RF algorithm had area under curve (AUC) of 88%, accuracy of 96%, precision of 96%, sensitivity of 99%, and specificity of 80%. Intubation, SpO2, age, time from symptoms, loss of consciousness, reception season, and diabetes were the seven ordered and significant predictors of the risk of COVID-19 patients’ death. RF model can aid in clinical decision-making and limited resource allocation. This model needs to be externally validated in larger populations, more features, and multicenter settings. Received: August 4, 2023Accepted: September 13, 2023