A COMPARISON OF OPERA AND MEWS SCORES IN PATIENTS APPLYING TO THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT WITH DYSPNEA DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC PERIOD

Introduction: During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were difficulties in diagnostic applications in patients who applied to the emergency department with dyspnea. We aimed to compare the Oxygen, Predisposing factors, Effusion, Radiology, Age (OPERA) scoring that we determined to be fast in diagnosis and treatment, with the Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) scoring and imaging findings. We investigated the effectiveness of scoring in predicting prognosis and mortality. Method: Our retrospective cross-sectional study included 271 patients who presented to a university emergency department between 07 April and 31 July 2020 with dyspnea. MEWS and OPERA scores, demographic characteristics, vital signs, serological tests and detailed findings of computed tomography (CT) of the patients included in the study were scanned. Patients were analyzed in terms of diagnosis, need for intensive care, and two-month mortality. Results: A total of 271 patients (149 (55%) women, mean age 60.6 ± 18.1 years old) who presented to the emergency department with dyspnea were included in our study. While 43 (15.9%) patients died in the last two months, 69 (25.5%) patients needed intensive care. When the value of 4 was determined as the limit for the MEWS score, 21 (14.1%) patients admitted to the intensive care unit were found to be