Joint modeling of longitudinal and competing risks for assessing blood oxygen saturation and its association with survival outcomes in COVID-19 patients

Abstract

The objective of the present study is to evaluate the association between longitudinal and survival outcomes in the presence of competing risk events. To illustrate the application of joint modeling in clinical research, we assessed the blood oxygen saturation (SPO2) and its association with survival outcomes in coronavirus disease (COVID-19). In this prospective cohort study, we followed 300 COVID-19 patients, who were diagnosed with severe COVID-19 in the Rohani Hospital in Babol, the north of Iran from October 22, 2020 to March 5, 2021, where death was the event of interest, surviving was the competing risk event and SPO2 was the longitudinal outcome. Joint modeling analyses were compared to separate analyses for these data. The estimation of the association parameter in the joint modeling verified the association between longitudinal outcome SPO2 with survival outcome of death (Hazard Ratio (HR) = 0.33, P = 0.001) and the competing risk outcome of surviving (HR = 4.18, P < 0.001). Based on the joint modeling, longitudinal outcome (SPO2) decreased in hypertension patients (β = -0.28, P = 0.581) and increased in those with a high level of SPO2 on admission (β = 0.75, P = 0.03). Also, in the survival submodel in the joint model, the risk of death survival outcome increased in patients with diabetes comorbidity (HR = 4.38, P = 0.026). The association between longitudinal measurements of SPO2 and survival outcomes of COVID-19 confirms that SPO2 is an important indicator in this disease. Thus, the application of this joint model can provide useful clinical evidence in the different areas of medical sciences.