A significant link has been reported between COVID-19 disease and renal dysfunction. This study investigated the prevalence and correlated factors for renal impairment in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 pneumonia This retrospective study examined medical files of patients with confirmed severe COVID-19 pneumonia that had available serum creatinine results. The outcome variable was renal dysfunction that was defined as increased serum creatinine above the upper limit of normal range (ULNR). Factors significant at 10% level in bivariate analyses were considered in a multivariate logistic regression analysis to produce adjusted odds ratios and their 95% confidence intervals. In total, 179 patients were included in the study and the mean age was 58 years (SD 16.5) and 49% were female. The main admission comorbidities were hypertension (50.0%), diabetes mellitus (28.6%), HIV/AIDs (21.9%) and chronic kidney disease (7.6%). The prevalence of renal impairment was 51.9%. Renal impairment was significantly higher in males vs. females (59.3% vs. 44.3%, p=0.044) and in patients with underlying hypertension (60.5% vs. 39.9%, p=0.039). After adjusting for age, male gender, underlying CKD, diastolic blood pressure, and raised white cell count, hypertension was an independent predictor of renal impairment with a 1.53 (95% CI [1.03-2.26], p=0.033) odds ratio. The study shows that renal dysfunction is common in hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia and hypertension is a positive independent predictor of renal impairment.
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