The Effect of Age on Mortality in Patients With COVID-19: A Meta-Analysis With 611,583 Subjects.
Clara Bonanad, Sergio García-Blas, Francisco Tarazona-Santabalbina and 6 others
PMID 32674819WHAT IT FOUND
Mortality in patients with COVID-19 rose sharply with age: under 1% below 50, and 29.6% in patients aged 80 or older.
Every older age group had higher death risk than the next younger group.
Key findings
01Mortality was highest in patients aged 80 years or older, at 29.6% in the combined national reports.
02Every age group had significantly higher mortality than the immediately younger age group.
03Patients aged over 80 had 6-fold higher odds of death than all patients aged under 80.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Hospital registries were excluded because they lacked age distribution, so the analysis rests on national and regional reports. The national and regional reports used different methods and had significant heterogeneity. Deaths in nursing homes and socio-sanitary centres were not published, so mortality among older adults may be underestimated.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as saying that age alone causes death or that every patient aged 80 or older will die. The study reports mortality rates by age group across national reports. It does not show why older adults die or whether any treatment or nursing action changes that risk.