Clinical sequelae of COVID-19 survivors in Wuhan, China: a single-centre longitudinal study

By Qiutang Xiong, Ming Xu, Jiao Li, Yinghui Liu, Jixiang Zhang, Yu Xu, W. Dong. Clinical Microbiology and Infection, 2020

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Objectives To describe the prevalence, nature and risk factors for the main clinical sequelae in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) survivors who have been discharged from the hospital for more than 3 months. Methods This longitudinal study was based on a telephone follow-up survey of COVID-19 patients hospitalized and discharged from Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China before 1 March 2020. Demographic and clinical characteristics and self-reported clinical sequelae of the survivors were described and analysed. A cohort of volunteers who were free of COVID-19 and lived in the urban area of Wuhan during the outbreak were also selected as the comparison group. Results Among 538 survivors (293, 54.5% female), the median (interquartile range) age was 52.0 (41.0–62.0) years, and the time from discharge from hospital to first follow-up was 97.0 (95.0–102.0) days. Clinical sequelae were common, including general symptoms (n = 267, 49.6%), respiratory symptoms (n = 210, 39%), cardiovascular-related symptoms (n = 70, 13%), psychosocial symptoms (n = 122, 22.7%) and alopecia (n = 154, 28.6%). We found that physical decline/fatigue (p < 0.01), postactivity polypnoea (p= 0.04) and alopecia (p < 0.01) were more common in female than in male subjects. Dyspnoea during hospitalization was associated with subsequent physical decline/fatigue, postactivity polypnoea and resting heart rate increases but not specifically with alopecia. A history of asthma during hospitalization was associated with subsequent postactivity polypnoea sequela. A history of pulse ≥90 bpm during hospitalization was associated with resting heart rate increase in convalescence. The duration of virus shedding after COVID-19 onset and hospital length of stay were longer in survivors with physical decline/fatigue or postactivity polypnoea than in those without. Conclusions Clinical sequelae during early COVID-19 convalescence were common; some of these sequelae might be related to gender, age and clinical characteristics during hospitalization.

Subfields: Critical Care and Intensive Care Medicine, Molecular Biology, Neurology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2f63babf3c1d2a27e713e25f4286bfd5d7293f4b

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In Critical Care and Intensive Care Medicine

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Citations in the corpus

Long COVID or post-COVID-19 syndrome: putative pathophysiology, risk factors, and treatments (2021, background): “Less common symptoms of pernio, chills, flushing, ear pain, and visual impairments associated with long COVID have also been documented [36,45,47].”
More Than 50 Long-Term Effects of COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (2021, background): “A couple of studies reported that fatigue was more common in female, and one study reported that post activity polypnea and alopecia were more common in female (3, 10).”