COVID-19: association of the National Early Warning Score with triage categories, severity and outcomes.

OBJECTIVES

to identify the association of the National Early Warning Score (NEWS2) and NEWS Age with risk categories, severity markers and outcomes in the emergency department.

METHODS

retrospective cohort study, conducted in a high-complexity hospital, with 356 hospitalized patients (mean age 59.4; ±14.4 years) with COVID-19, from April to August 2020. To verify the association between risk categories and alert scores, the chi-square, Kruskal-Wallis and likelihood ratio tests (p<0.05) were used.

RESULTS

patients stratified in the red category had higher NEWS2 and NEWS Age (<0.0001) than the others. Clinical risk categorized by scores was associated with clinical deterioration (p<0.0001), orotracheal intubation (p<0.0001) and death (NEWS - p=0.0098/NEWS Age - p<0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS

scores ≥ 7 were associated with red/orange risk stratification, clinical deterioration and occurrence of death.