In-Hospital Mortality among Iranian Patients with COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Study

Background and Objectives: The prevalence of in-hospital mortality of patients with COVID-19 is one of the qualitative indexes that can be used to assess the quality of care and mortality patterns in the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the present study aims to assess the overall prevalence of in-hospital mortality among Iranian patients with COVID-19. Methods: A query was conducted on Iranian databases, including Health.barakatkns, IranDoc, SID, Civilica, and MagIran, as well as international databases, including Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, and Elsevier. Additional search was also performed by the Google Scholar search engine. We systematically reviewed all studies reporting the prevalence of in-hospital mortality of COVID-19 patients. This study employed the random-effects meta-analysis to estimate the pooled in-hospital mortality. Results: A total of 118 records were retrieved by the electronic search, of which 43 studies were identified as relevant documents that were meta-analyzed for the pooled prevalence of in-hospital COVID-19-related morality. In general, the mortality rate was obtained at 13.0% (95% CI: 10.72%-13.61%). The highest and lowest mortality rates were reported in Northern Provinces ((Gilan, 27.27% (95% CI: 8.66%-45.88%) and Mazandaran, 21.27% (95% CI: 18.14%-24.40%)) and Turkish-speaking provinces ((Azerbaijan, East, 3.29% (95% CI: 2.11%-4.47%) and Zanjan, 3.42% (95% CI: 1.82%-5.02%)), respectively. Conclusion: Considering the mortality rate obtained in this study and its comparison with other countries, it can be concluded that the performance of the Iranian medical system during the COVID-19 pandemic is acceptable.