Introduction:

the use of different mortality and severity prognostic scales provide a quick, simple and reliable way to identify patients requiring in-hospital care, predict mortality and severity such as the National Early Warning Score 2 (NEWS 2). New clinical scales have emerged as a result of the pandemic such as the Quick COVID-19 Severity Index (qCSI) that can be implemented in patient care to improve decision making from the first contact in the emergency department.

Objective:

compare the Quick COVID-19 Severity Index scale and NEWS 2 to predict mortality and hospital stay in patients with COVID-19 treated in the emergency department.

Material and methods:

a 95% confidence interval and a significance p > 0.05 were used. The OR risk measure for mortality and hospitalization site was calculated. In the same way, the sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value of the scales were calculated.

Results:

qCSI presented a sensitivity of 83% and a specificity of 42% compared to the NEWS 2 scale with 63% and 25% respectively, so it has a higher probability that the patient with COVID-19 infection will be correctly stratified and the hospital admission.

Conclusions:

first contact emergency physicians must have validated tools to predict mortality and days of hospitalization in patients with COVID-19. With which it is expected to generate a positive impact in the planning and effective use of human and material resources for the care of these patients.

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