Long COVID: Assessment of Neuropsychiatric Symptoms in Children and Adolescents - A Clinical Data Analysis

  1. Jan Frölich
  2. Tobias Banaschewski
  3. Annabelle Ulmer

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Abstract

COVID-19 infections in adults often result in medical, neuropsychiatric, and unspecific symptoms, called Long COVID, and the premorbid functional status cannot be achieved. Regarding the course in children and adolescents, however, reliable data are not yet available.

Objective

380 children and adolescents/young adults aged between 6 and 21 years, being treated for various psychiatric diseases in an outpatient clinical service, were examined for COVID-19 infections and Long COVID symptoms following a structured protocol.

Results

Three patients had COVID-19; one patient had symptoms of Long COVID in his medical history, but they could not be objectivized in an in-depth neuropsychiatric and neuropsychological assessment.

Conclusions

Long COVID seems to occur rarely in children and adolescents. Objectivizing the symptoms is a difficult task that requires various diagnostic considerations.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.09.03.21257002: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: Informed parental consent was obtained from the three examined participants, and the study was performed according to the Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects (Declaration of Helsinki, World Medical Association, WMA, 2013).”
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    In addition, a panel of blood tests was performed including CBC, CRP, liver enzymes and antibody titer against SARS-CoV-2, as well as an awake EEG.
    CRP
    suggested: None
    SARS-CoV-2
    suggested: None

    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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.09.03.21257002v2 on medRxiv
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.09.03.21257002v1 on medRxiv