Determination of the Most Important Diagnostic Criteria for COVID-19: A Step forward to Design an Intelligent Clinical Decision Support System

Abstract: Background & Objective: Since the clinical and epidemiologic characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is not well known yet, investigating its origin, etiology, diagnostic criteria, clinical manifestations, risk factors, treatments, and other related aspects is extremely important. In this situation, clinical experts face many uncertainties to make decision about COVID-19 prognosis based on their judgment. Accordingly, this study aimed to determine the diagnostic criteria for COVID-19 as a prerequisite to develop clinical diagnostic models. Materials & Methods: In this retrospective study, the Enter method of the binary logistic regression (BLR) and the Forward Wald method were used to measure the odds ratio (OR) and the strength of each criterion, respectively. P-value