Long COVID in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients: A Retrospective Cohort Study
,
Abstract
Background: We aimed to evaluate the Long COVID frequency, and related factors in patients followed up after hospitalization.
Methods: This retrospective cohort study included 133 inpatients with COVID-19 PCR test positivity from Nigde Province, Turkey between 01.01.2021 and 28.02.2021. The characteristics of the patients were recorded by examining the files, and the symptom questioning was made by telephone interviewing with the patients approximately four months after the date of diagnosis. The presence of at least one symptom lasting more than four weeks was described as Long COVID.
Results: The frequency of Long COVID was 64.7%. The most common Long COVID symptoms were fatigue (45.9%), respiratory distress (25.6%), and muscle / joint pain (24.8%), respectively. In comparison analysis to identify factors associated with Long COVID; Long COVID was found to be more frequent among women (P=0.04); patients with severe COVID-19 (P<0.01), patients with prolonged hospital stay (P=0.03), patients with the comorbid disease (P=0.03), and Diabetes Mellitus patients (P=0.02). Additionally, the frequency of Long COVID increased as the depression score stated by the person increased after COVID-19 disease (P=0.02).
Conclusion: The treatment of COVID-19 patients should not end when they are discharged from the hospital. On the contrary, these patients, especially high-risk patients, should be followed up in post-COVID clinics and rehabilitated physically and psychosocially with a multidisciplinary approach following the recovery period of the acute illness.
2. Oran DP, Topol EJ (2021). The proportion of SARS-CoV-2 infections that are asymptomatic: a sys-tematic review. Ann Intern Med, 174(5): 655-662.
3. Godri Pollitt KJ, Peccia J, Ko AI, et al (2020). COVID-19 vulnerability: the potential impact of genetic susceptibility and airborne transmission. Hum Ge-nomics, 14(1):1-7.
4. Murray MF, Kenny EE, Ritchie MD, et al (2020). COVID-19 outcomes and the human genome. Genet Med, 22(7):1175-7.
5. Nguyen A, David JK, Maden SK (2020). Human leu-kocyte antigen susceptibility map for SARS-CoV-2. J Virol, 94(13): e00510-20.
6. Carfì A, Bernabei R, Landi F, Gemelli Against COVID-19 Post-Acute Care Study Group (2020). Persis-tent symptoms in patients after acute covid-19. JAMA, 324(6): 603-5.
7. Godlee F (2020). Living with covid-19. BMJ, 370: m3392.
8. Baig AM (2020). Chronic COVID Syndrome: Need for an appropriate medical terminology for Long-COVID and COVID Long-Haulers. J Med Virol, 93(5): 2555-6.
9. Davis HE, Assaf GS, McCorkell L, et al (2021). Charac-terizing long COVID in an international cohort: 7 months of symptoms and their impact. Eclinical Medicine, 38: 101019.
10. Carvalho-Schneider C, Laurent E, et al (2021). Fol-low-up of adults with noncritical COVID-19 two months after symptom onset. Clin Microbiol Infect, 27(2):258-63.
11. World Health Organization Clinical management of COVID-19 interim guidance (2020). Available from: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/332196
12. Raveendran AV, Jayadevan R, Sashidharan S (2021). Long COVID: an overview. Diabetes Metab Syndr, 15(3): 869-875.
13. Westerlind E, Palstam A, Sunnerhagen KS, et al (2021). Patterns and predictors of sick leave after Covid-19 and long Covid in a national Swedish cohort. BMC Public Health, 21(1):1-9.
14. Lopez-Leon S, Wegman-Ostrosky T, Perelman C, et al (2021). More than 50 Long-term effects of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sci Rep, 11(1): 16144.
15. Tansey CM, Louie M, Loeb M, et al (2007). One-year outcomes and health care utilization in survivors of severe acute respiratory syndrome. Arch Intern Med, 167(12):1312-20.
16. Huang C, Huang L, Wang Y, et al (2021). 6-month consequences of COVID-19 in patients dis-charged from hospital: a cohort study. Lancet, 397(10270):220-32.
17. Sudre CH, Murray B, Varsavsky T, et al (2021). At-tributes and predictors of long COVID. Nat Med, 27(4):626-31.
18. Nabavi N (2020). Long covid: How to define it and how to manage it. BMJ, 370:m3489.
19. Simani L, Ramezani M, Darazam IA, et al (2021). Prevalence and correlates of chronic fatigue syn-drome and post-traumatic stress disorder after the outbreak of the COVID-19. J Neurovirol, 27(1):154-9.
20. Halpin SJ, McIvor C, Whyatt G, et al (2021). Postdis-charge symptoms and rehabilitation needs in sur-vivors of COVID-19 infection: A cross-sectional evaluation. J Med Virol, 93(2):1013-22.
21. Stavem K, Ghanima W, Olsen MK, et al (2021). Per-sistent symptoms 1.5–6 months after COVID-19 in non-hospitalised subjects: a population-based cohort study. Thorax, 76(4):405-7.
22. Petersen MS, Kristiansen MF, Hanusson KD, et al (2020). Long COVID in the Faroe Islands-a lon-gitudinal study among non-hospitalized patients. Clin Infect Dis, 73(11):e4058-e4063.
23. Moreno-Pérez O, Merino E, Leon-Ramirez J-M, et al (2021). Post-acute COVID-19 syndrome. Inci-dence and risk factors: A Mediterranean cohort study. J Infect, 82(3):378-83.
24. Stokes EK, Zambrano LD, Anderson KN, et al (2020). Coronavirus disease 2019 case surveil-lance—United States, January 22–may 30, 2020. Morb Mortal Wkly Rep, 69(24):759.
25. Tenforde MW, Kim SS, Lindsell CJ, et al (2020). Symptom duration and risk factors for delayed return to usual health among outpatients with COVID-19 in a multistate health care systems network—United States, March–June 2020. Morb Mortal Wkly Rep, 69(30):993.
26. Yu M, Liu Y, Xu D, et al (2020). Prediction of the de-velopment of pulmonary fibrosis using serial thin-section CT and clinical features in patients dis-charged after treatment for COVID-19 pneu-monia. Korean J Radiol, 21(6):746.
27. Taboada M, Cariñena A, Moreno E, et al (2021). Post-COVID-19 functional status six-months af-ter hospitalization. J Infect, 82(4):e31-e33.
28. Raman B, Cassar MP, Tunnicliffe EM, et al (2021). Medium-term effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection on multiple vital organs, exercise capacity, cogni-tion, quality of life and mental health, post-hospital discharge. Eclinical Medicine, 31:100683.
29. Oeckler RA, Hubmayr RD (2007). Ventilator-associated lung injury: a search for beter therapeu-tic targets. Eur Respir J, 30(6):1216-26.
| Files | ||
| Issue | Vol 51 No 1 (2022) | |
| Section | Original Article(s) | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.18502/ijph.v51i1.8297 | |
| Keywords | ||
| Long COVID COVID-19 Symptom Hospital Turkey | ||
| Rights and permissions | |
|
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. |
