Machine learning approaches to predict the need for intensive care unit admission among Iranian COVID‐19 patients based on ICD‐10: A cross‐sectional study

Abstract

AbstractBackground & AimTimely identification of the patients requiring intensive care unit admission (ICU) could be life‐saving. We aimed to compare different machine learning algorithms to predict the requirements for ICU admission in COVID‐19 patients.MethodsWe screened all patients with COVID‐19 at six academic hospitals in Tehran comprising our study population. A total of 44,112 COVID‐19 patients (≥18 years old) were included, among which 7722 patients were hospitalized. We used a Random Forest algorithm to select significant variables. Then, prediction models were developed using the Support Vector Machine, Naıve Bayes, logistic regression, lightGBM, decision tree, and K‐Nearest Neighbor algorithms. Sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, F1 score, and receiver operating characteristic‐Area Under the Curve (AUC) were used to compare the prediction performance of different models.ResultsBased on random Forest, the following predictors were selected: age, cardiac disease, cough, hypertension, diabetes, influenza & pneumonia, malignancy, and nervous system disease. Age was found to have the strongest association with ICU admission among COVID‐19 patients. All six models achieved an AUC greater than 0.60. Naıve Bayes achieved the best predictive performance (AUC = 0.71).ConclusionNaïve Bayes and lightGBM demonstrated promising results in predicting ICU admission needs in COVID‐19 patients. Machine learning models could help quickly identify high‐risk patients upon entry and reduce mortality and morbidity among COVID‐19 patients.