An easy-to-use prehospital severity scoring tool to triage COVID-19 positive adults in a resource-limited setting Authors Danish Ali Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan Mustafa Zubairi Final Year MBBS Student, Dow Medical College, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan Maaha Ayub Final Year MBBS Student, Aga Khan University Medical College, Karachi, Pakistan Safia Awan Department of Medicine, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan Akbar Shoukat Ali Department of Medicine, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan Ali Bin Sarwar Zubairi Department of Medicine, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan DOI: https://doi.org/10.47391/JPMA.6058 Keywords: Severity scoring tool, COVID-19 management, Pre-hospital triage, Low- and middle-income countries, Resource-limited setting Abstract Objective: To develop an easy-to-use severity scoring tool for prehospital triage of patients infected by the coronavirus disease-2019 in resource-limited settings. Method: The cohort study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital in Karachi, from August to September 2020, and comprised adult patients of either gender who tested positive for coronavirus disease-2019 on real-time polymerase chain reaction. The scoring system and categorisation were based on validated scales for the detection of pneumonia and opinions from pulmonologists. Data was analysed using SPSS 19. Results: Of the 206 participants, 100(48.5%) were in-patients and 106(51.5%) were out-patients. There were 144(69.9%) males and 62(30.1%) females with an overall mean age of 48.4±16.2 years. After categorisation based on severity, significantly higher number of in-patients were found to be in categories III and IV (p<0.05). Conclusion: The severity scoring tool could effectively help classify coronavirus disease-2019 patients into mild, moderate and severe cases. Key Words: Severity scoring tool, COVID-19 management, Pre-hospital triage, Low- and middle-income countries, Resource-limited setting. Author Biography Danish Ali, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan Research Facilitation Office, Aga Khan University, Stadium Road, Karachi, Pakistan Downloads Full Text Article Published 2023-09-13 How to Cite Ali, D., Zubairi, M., Ayub, M., Awan, S., Ali, A. S., & Ali Bin Sarwar Zubairi. (2023). An easy-to-use prehospital severity scoring tool to triage COVID-19 positive adults in a resource-limited setting. Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association, 73(10), 1959–1964. https://doi.org/10.47391/JPMA.6058 More Citation Formats ACM ACS APA ABNT Chicago Harvard IEEE MLA Turabian Vancouver Download Citation Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS) BibTeX Issue Vol. 73 No. 10 (2023): OCTOBER Section RESEARCH ARTICLE License Copyright (c) 2023 Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.