Which is better in predicting mortality in patients hospitalized for COVID-19: CURB-65 score versus physicians' gestalt

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: This study aims to measure and compare the CURB-65 score and the predictive performance of physician's gestalt in predicting mortality for COVID-19 patients admitted to the emergency department (ED) and intended for hospitalization. METHODS: This study was designed as prospective-observational. All COVID-19 patients admitted to the ED between May 1 and June 1, 2021, were included in the study. Based on these results, the gestalt percentages and CURB-65 scores of the hospitalized patients were calculated, and the in-hospital mortality predictive power was analyzed. RESULTS: This study was performed with 101 patients after utilising the inclusion-exclusion criteria. The mean age of the patients was 75.9+or-9.31 years and 55 (54.5%) were male. The most suitable cut-off value for CURB-65 was found to be 2.50, and the most suitable cutoff value for Gestalt was found to be 35%. Area under the curve (AUC) value, sensitivity and specificity of CURB-65, was calculated as 0.668, 0.500 and 0.841, respectively. For Gestalt, these values were found as 0.630, 0.789 and 0.444, respectively. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: In this study, it was revealed that the predictive powers of the CURB-65 score and physician's gestalt were successful in predicting in hospital mortality for COVID-19 patients, but they were not superior to each other. According to the results of our study, we suggest the use of gestalt for physicians working in limited-resource or crowded EDs.