Classification supporting COVID-19 diagnostics based on patient survey data

Abstract: Distinguishing COVID-19 from other flu-like illnesses can be difficult due to ambiguous symptoms and still an initial experience of doctors. Whereas, it is crucial to filter out those sick patients who do not need to be tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection, especially in the event of the overwhelming increase in disease. As a part of the presented research, logistic regression and XGBoost classifiers, that allow for effective screening of patients for COVID-19, were generated. Each of the methods was tuned to achieve an assumed acceptable threshold of negative predictive values during classification. Additionally, an explanation of the obtained classification models was presented. The explanation enables the users to understand what was the basis of the decision made by the model. The obtained classification models provided the basis for the DECODE service (decode.polsl.pl), which can serve as support in screening patients with COVID-19 disease. Moreover, the data set constituting the basis for the analyses performed is made available to the research community. This data set consisting of more than 3,000 examples is based on questionnaires collected at a hospital in Poland.