P-475 Socioeconomic and clinical factors associated with death and hospitalization of health professionals affected by COVID-19 in Brazil, 2020

Abstract

<h3>Introduction</h3> The new coronavirus pandemic affected the lives of millions of people across the planet in 2020. Brazil, in just a few months, became the epicenter of the pandemic in Latin America. This, due to the absence of vaccines and the ineffective isolation measures adopted. In this context, health professionals stand out as a group with greater exposure and risk of being affected by COVID-19. <h3>Objective</h3> To analyze clinical and sociodemographic characteristics associated with death and hospitalization of health professionals due to COVID-19, in addition to calculating the incidence rates per occupation. <h3>Methods</h3> We conducted a cross-sectional observational study that used secondary data from the State of Espírito Santo Health Department. COVID-19 cases in healthcare professionals were recorded between February 27 and August 17, 2020 in Espírito Santo, Brazil. Cases with a lack of information were excluded. To compare the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of health professionals with the clinical outcomes (cure or death) and the need for hospitalization, a bivariate analysis was performed using the <i>X</i>² tests of independence or Fisher’s exact test. Data analysis was performed using the SPSS 20.0 software. <h3>Results</h3> 75.6% (n = 9,191) of the cases were female; the general lethality rate was 0.27% and the general hospitalization rate was 1.0%. The clinical outcome of death and the occurrence of hospitalization were associated with: male gender, age greater than or equal to 50 years, higher education, fever, difficulty breathing, cough, cardiac comorbidity, diabetes and obesity (p &lt;0.05). Only the occurrence of hospitalization was associated with: case reported in the metropolitan region of Vitória-ES, runny nose, sore throat, headache and renal comorbidity (p &lt;0.05). The occupation with the highest incidence rate was nurses (16,053 cases/100,000 nurses). <h3>Conclusion</h3> The study demonstrated a high frequency of cases in females, low general lethality and high incidence in nurses.