Illness severity, support provided and radiographic findings among children admitted to hospital because of COVID-19
| Characteristic | No. (%) of children admitted to hospital because of COVID-19 | p value† | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All cases n = 150 | Age* | |||
| Infant (< 1 yr) n = 63 | Older children (1 to < 18 yr) n = 86 | |||
| Clinical presentation‡ | 0.001 | |||
| Mild illness | 44 (29.3) | 25 (39.7) | 19 (22.1) | – |
| Moderate illness | 31 (20.7) | 17 (27.0) | 13 (15.1) | – |
| Severe illness | 23 (15.3) | 10 (15.9) | 13 (15.1) | – |
| Critical illness | 52 (34.7) | 11 (17.5) | 41 (47.7) | – |
| Respiratory or hemodynamic support required | 42 (28.0) | 10 (15.9) | 32 (37.2) | 0.004 |
| Low-flow oxygen | 23 (15.3) | 7 (11.1) | 16 (18.6) | 0.2 |
| High-flow nasal cannula | 14 (9.3) | 0 (0.0) | 14 (16.3) | < 0.001 |
| Noninvasive ventilation (e.g., CPAP or BiPAP) | 8 (5.3) | < 5 (< 7.9) | 5–7 (5.8–8.1)§ | 1.0 |
| Conventional mechanical ventilation | 9 (6.0) | < 5 (< 7.9) | 5–8 (5.8–9.3)§ | 0.7 |
| High-frequency oscillatory ventilation | < 5 (< 3.3) | < 5 (< 7.9) | 0 (0.0) | 0.4 |
| Nitric oxide | < 5 (< 3.3) | 0 (0.0) | < 5 (< 5.8) | 1.0 |
| Vasopressors | 8 (5.3) | 0 (0.0) | 8 (9.3) | 0.02 |
| Admitted to ICU | 32 (21.3) | 6 (9.5) | 26 (30.2) | 0.002 |
| Radiographic findings, n/patients with imaging, % | ||||
| Abnormal chest radiograph | 40/103 (38.8) | 12/41 (29.3) | 27/61 (44.3) | 0.1 |
| Abnormal CT | 7/15 (46.7) | 0 (0.0) | 7/15 (46.7) | – |
| Died | < 5 (< 3.3) | 0 (0.0) | < 5 (< 5.8) | 1.0 |
Note: BiPAP = bilevel positive airway pressure, CPAP = continuous positive airway pressure, CT = computed tomography, ICU = intensive care unit.
↵* We could not assign an age category for 1 child for whom the date of birth was missing.
↵† We conducted statistical tests between infants and older children. We imputed missing or unknown data to the null value, and the proportion of missing or unknown values was < 5% for all variables.
↵‡ We defined severity categories using criteria modified from Dong et al (15) and definitions are listed in Appendix 2 (available at www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.210053/tab-related-content).
↵§ Some statistics are presented as a range to prevent back-calculation of < 5 cell sizes.