Abstract

Background: Although Obesity has been related to the severity of COVID-19, It remains unclear the relationship between the admission of seriously ill patients for this virus, especially in emergency critical care units (ICU), as a global and economic problem, due to the presence of increased body weight. Objective: Therefore, this study aims to understand the relationship between the degree of obesity and bed days in patients admitted to the ICU. A descriptive, comparative and longitudinal study of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 between March-December of 2020 at the Regional Hospital of Copiapo, Chile. Methods: A descriptive, longitudinal study with a quantitative approach to analyze the relationship between score and category of BMI and days in ICU was used for this research. It was carried out after the collection of records of patients admitted to the ICU at the Regional Hospital of Copiapo (RHC), Chile. The Variables used were sex, age, body mass index (BMI), BMI categorization, and days of ICU hospitalization. Results: The mean and standard deviation for age was 58.04±12.6 years, weight was 81.12±14.03 kg, height was 1.61±0.3 m, BMI was 30±5.04 kg/m2, days of hospitalization was 17.7±5.5 days, while days of mechanical ventilation in ICU was 14.2±3.4. Conclusion: Our results prove and relate directly that obesity influences on prolonged use of ICU beds would partly explain the saturation of patients in emergency rooms as an important factor in the severity of COVID-19.