covid-19 related hospitalization costs; assessment of influencing factors

Objective: our aim is to assess the effective factors on hospitalization costs of covid-19 patients.methods: data related to clinical characteristics and cost of hospitalized covid-19 patients from february 2020until july 2020, in a public teaching hospital in tehran, iran was gathered in a retrospective cohort study. thecorresponding factors influencing the diagnostic and therapeutic costs were evaluated, using a generalized linear model.results: the median covid-19 related diagnostic and therapeutic costs in a public teaching hospital in iran,for one hospitalized covid-19 patient was equal to 271.1 us dollars (usd). in patients who were dischargedalive from the hospital, the costs increased with patients’ pregnancy (p<0.001), loss of consciousness duringhospitalization (p<0.001), a history of drug abuse (p=0.006), history of chronic renal disease (p<0.001), endstage renal disease (p=0.002), history of brain surgery (p=0.001), history of migraine (p=0.001), cardiomegaly(p=0.033) and occurrence of myocardial infarction during hospitalization (p<0.001). in deceased patients, lowage p<0.001), history of congenital disease (p=0.024) and development of cardiac dysrhythmias during hospitalization (p=0.044) were related to increase in therapeutic costs.conclusion: median diagnostic and therapeutic costs in covid-19 patients, hospitalized in a public teachinghospital in iran were 271.1 usd. hoteling and medications made up most of the costs. history of cardiovasculardisease and new onset episodes of such complications during hospitalization were the most important factorscontributing to the increase of therapeutic costs. moreover, pregnancy, loss of consciousness, and renal diseasesare of other independent factors affecting hospitalization costs in covid-19 patients.