Risk Factors for Dysphagia in Patients Hospitalized with COVID-19.

The study was retrospective and used electronic health records, so timing and details of bedside evaluations were not controlled. Patients without a speech-language pathology consult were not assumed to have normal swallowing, and the risk-factor analysis included only patients already suspected of having dysphagia. The bedside outcome was a modified diet on the IDDSI-FDS, which can occur for reasons other than oropharyngeal dysphagia. Only 41 patients had instrumental swallow studies because aerosol-generating procedures were restricted, and these exams were prioritized for difficult cases. The study was done at one hospital during the first year of the pandemic, so tracheostomy and evaluation practices may not match current care. The finding that Hispanic or Latino/a/x patients were less likely to have dysphagia rested on only five of the 41 instrumental studies. The text says 117 patients were seen by the swallow service, but Table 1 lists 118. The study showed associations, not causation; no causal relationship between prone positioning and dysphagia was demonstrated.

The supplied text lists funding from the National Institutes of Health and does not provide an author conflict-of-interest statement.

Do not conclude that prone positioning, intubation, or ventilation cause dysphagia. The study found associations among patients who had already been referred for swallowing evaluation, and patients without a consult may also have had dysphagia.