Development and Validation of a Nomogram to Predict Deteriorating Trajectory in Patients with COVID-19 Infection: A Population-Based Prospective Study

Background: Most of the patients with COVID-19 infection are mild to moderate initially. However, there is no effective prediction for the patients to develop into severe or extremely severe. This study aims to develop an effective clinical prediction model. Methods: A single-center, retrospective, observational study conducted. A nomogram was conducted based on the results of multivariate logistic regression analysis. Results: A total of 483 patients diagnosed mild to moderate were included, among these patients 62 developed severe or extremely critical illness. Seven variables including hyperlipidemia, vomiting, diarrhea, lymphocyte, imaging and mentality were associated with deteriorating trajectory. The ROC curve showed that model was robust, for which the area under the curve of the training set and the validation set are 0.873 and 0.813. Conclusions: For patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 infection, nomogram score can effectively predict the possibility of patients developing into severe or extremely critical.