Post-COVID-19 symptoms are not uncommon among recovered patients-A cross-sectional online survey among the Indian population
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Abstract
Background
Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) can have a myriad of symptoms. However, it is now known that most patients recovered from COVID-19 have symptoms related to COVID-19. There is a paucity of literature on post-COVID-19 symptoms from India. Hence we aimed to assess the incidence of post-COVID-19 symptoms in patients recovered from COVID-19. Methods: An online Microsoft forms survey was conducted through multiple social media platforms.
Results
Of the 5,347 individuals who received and clicked the link, a total of 2038 infected patients responded (Supplementary figure). Approximately 48% (967/2038) had recovered from COVID-19 within 1-3 months (short-term recovered), 34.2% (375/2038) had recovered from COVID-19 >3 months ago (long recovered), and 18.4% (375) were recovered within the last one month (recently recovered). Nearly 38% (770/2038) had a history of hospitalization for COVID-19. Of them, 34.28% (264/770) required oxygen therapy during the hospital stay. Most patients were discharged within 5-10 days of hospital stay (54%, 415/770). Only 5.58% (43/770) required a stay of more than 20 days. Seventy-five percent (575/770) of the hospitalized patients received steroid therapy. Of those who received steroid therapy, 56.5% (325/575) had not required oxygen therapy. Forty percent (233/575) of patients received steroid therapy for two weeks, 24% (138/575) for one week, 33.73% received steroids only during the hospital stay, and 1.73% were still on steroid therapy during the survey.
Most importantly, of the 2038 respondents, 41.8% (851/2038) still had persistent symptoms related to COVID-Most common symptom was fatigue (64.15%), followed by body pain (31%) and gastrointestinal symptoms (25%) ( Figure ). Six percent (49/851) of them required hospitalization for post-COVID-19 symptoms. Forty-six percent (449/967) in the short term recovered group (1-3 months), 40.1% (279/696) in the long-recovered group, and 32.8% (123/375) in the recently recovered group had persistent symptoms related to COVID-19 (P=0.001). Forty-eight percent (374/770) of the hospitalized patients developed post-COVID-19 symptoms, while only 37.6% (477/1268) developed post-COVID-19 symptoms among the non-hospitalized patients (P<0.001). Fifty-three percent (303/575) of those who received steroids developed post-COVID-19 symptoms, while only 36.41% (71/195) of those who did not receive steroids developed post-COVID-19 symptoms (P<0.001). 49% (159/325) of patients who received steroids despite being not requiring oxygen developed post-COVID-19 symptoms compared to only 37.5% (543/1449) who did not receive steroids and were not on oxygen therapy (P<0.001). Nearly 40% (336/851) of respondents felt that post-COVID-19 symptoms are not being appropriately treated or taken care of seriously.
Conclusions
Post-COVID-19 symptoms are common in patients who recovered from COVID-19. These symptoms are more often noted in patients who received steroid therapy. Post-COVID-19 symptomatology is present in a significant number of patients and requires to be addressed seriously.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.07.15.21260234: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics IRB: The institutional ethics committee approved the study vide letter no. AIG/IEC-Post BH&R 15/06/2021-07. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:The limitation of our survey is we did not capture the data on age and comorbidities of the patients who reported symptoms. However, to our knowledge, this is the …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.07.15.21260234: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics IRB: The institutional ethics committee approved the study vide letter no. AIG/IEC-Post BH&R 15/06/2021-07. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:The limitation of our survey is we did not capture the data on age and comorbidities of the patients who reported symptoms. However, to our knowledge, this is the first Indian study to report a high incidence of post-COVID-19 symptoms among COVID-19 recovered individuals. Both hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients suffer from post-COVID-19 symptoms. Furthermore, the injudicious use of steroids led to a significant increase in the risk of post-COVID-19 symptoms.
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a protocol registration statement.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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