• Hilary K Brown, Sudipta Saha, ChanTimothy C YTCYDepartment of Health and Society (Brown), University of Toronto Scarborough, Scarborough, Ont.; Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute (Saha, Chan, Razak, Verma), St. Michael's Hospital; Dalla Lana School of Public Health (Brown, Rosella), Depa, Angela M Cheung, Michael Fralick, Marzyeh Ghassemi, Margaret Herridge, Janice Kwan, Shail Rawal, Laura Rosella, Terence Tang, Adina Weinerman, Yona Lunsky, Fahad Razak, and Amol A Verma.
• Department of Health and Society (Brown), University of Toronto Scarborough, Scarborough, Ont.; Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute (Saha, Chan, Razak, Verma), St. Michael's Hospital; Dalla Lana School of Public Health (Brown, Rosella), Departments of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (Chan), Medicine (Cheung, Fralick, Herridge, Kwan, Rawal, Tang, Weinerman, Razak, Verma), Computer Science (Ghassemi) and Psychiatry (Lunsky), University of Toronto; Department of Medicine (Cheung, Fralick, Rawal), Sinai Health System; Vector Institute (Ghassemi), Toronto General Hospital; Department of Medicine (Herridge, Cheung), University Health Network; Department of Medicine (Weinerman), Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre; Azrieli Adult Neurodevelopmental Centre (Lunsky), Centre for Addiction & Mental Health; Department of Medicine (Razak, Verma), Unity Health Toronto, Toronto, Ont.; Institute for Better Health (Rosella, Tang), Trillium Health Partners, Mississauga, Ont.
• CMAJ. 2022 Jan 31; 194 (4): E112-E121.

BackgroundDisability-related considerations have largely been absent from the COVID-19 response, despite evidence that people with disabilities are at elevated risk for acquiring COVID-19. We evaluated clinical outcomes in patients who were admitted to hospital with COVID-19 with a disability compared with patients without a disability.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective cohort study that included adults with COVID-19 who were admitted to hospital and discharged between Jan. 1, 2020, and Nov. 30, 2020, at 7 hospitals in Ontario, Canada. We compared in-hospital death, admission to the intensive care unit (ICU), hospital length of stay and unplanned 30-day readmission among patients with and without a physical disability, hearing or vision impairment, traumatic brain injury, or intellectual or developmental disability, overall and stratified by age (≤ 64 and ≥ 65 yr) using multivariable regression, controlling for sex, residence in a long-term care facility and comorbidity.ResultsAmong 1279 admissions to hospital for COVID-19, 22.3% had a disability. We found that patients with a disability were more likely to die than those without a disability (28.1% v. 17.6%), had longer hospital stays (median 13.9 v. 7.8 d) and more readmissions (17.6% v. 7.9%), but had lower ICU admission rates (22.5% v. 28.3%). After adjustment, there were no statistically significant differences between those with and without disabilities for in-hospital death or admission to ICU. After adjustment, patients with a disability had longer hospital stays (rate ratio 1.36, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.19-1.56) and greater risk of readmission (relative risk 1.77, 95% CI 1.14-2.75). In age-stratified analyses, we observed longer hospital stays among patients with a disability than in those without, in both younger and older subgroups; readmission risk was driven by younger patients with a disability.InterpretationPatients with a disability who were admitted to hospital with COVID-19 had longer stays and elevated readmission risk than those without disabilities. Disability-related needs should be addressed to support these patients in hospital and after discharge.© 2022 CMA Impact Inc. or its licensors.

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