 whether some of these patients could have been good candidates for the serologic monitoring during the acute phase and follow-up, particularly the ones with typical CT features. Regardless of the limitations, this is an attempt to validate a useful tool in the clinical practice with encouraging results, particularly when allocating patients at admission.
In this study, the PSIC score was a reliable and valid tool for assessing the probability of a positive SARS-CoV-2 rt-PCR test in inpatients with pneumonia. Findings suggest that slight adjustments of the PSIC score might be considered in this subpopulation. When dealing with a highly contagious respiratory virus, the use of diagnostic clinical risk scores coupled with laboratory tests at admission may facilitate hospital patient allocation while under observation promoting intra-hospital infection control. To validate the proposed risk score at a broader level and to improve it, it should be applied at a multicentric scale. So far, proposed models are poorly reported and at high risk of bias. Hence, they cannot be recommended in current practice.
VC conceptualized the study. AA collected and organized the data. FD, VD, AA and DN performed the statistical analysis. AA, DN, VD and VC wrote the manuscript. All authors reviewed the manuscript.
We would like to thank all the medical team that provided care to the patients admitted to the COVID dedicated department of Centro Hospitalar de Setúbal E.P.E.. We also would like to thank Ivone Fernandes M.D. whose hard work contributed to the continuous care of other respiratory patients while the team was divided.
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