Pain and Other Neurological Symptoms Are Present at 3 Months After Hospitalization in COVID-19 Patients

  1. Jude P. J. Savarraj
  2. Angela B. Burkett
  3. Sarah N. Hinds
  4. Atzhiry S. Paz
  5. Andres Assing
  6. Shivanki Juneja
  7. Gabriela D. Colpo
  8. Luis F. Torres
  9. Sung-Min Cho
  10. Aaron M. Gusdon
  11. Louise D. McCullough
  12. H. Alex Choi

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Abstract

COVID-19 is an ongoing pandemic with a devastating impact on public health. Acute neurological symptoms have been reported after a COVID-19 diagnosis, however, the long-term neurological symptoms including pain is not well established. Using a prospective registry of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, we assessed pain and neurological function (including functional, cognitive and psychiatric assessments) of several hospitalized patients at 3 months. Our main finding is that 60% of the patients report pain symptoms. 71% of the patients still experienced neurological symptoms at 3 months and the most common symptoms being fatigue (42%) and PTSD (25%). Cognitive symptoms were found in 12%. Our preliminary findings suggests the importance of investigating long-term outcomes and rationalizes the need for further studies investigating the neurologic outcomes and symptoms of pain after COVID-19.

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  1. Version published to 10.3389/fpain.2021.737961
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.10.16.20211029: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: Written informed consent was obtained from subject or legal surrogate.
    IRB: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board, No: HSC-MS-20-1011.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot 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:
    However, remote contactless assessments are necessary as the pandemic has changed the care paradigm (causing disruption in routine health care services) and many recovering patients are reluctant to participate in an in-person follow-up due to health limitations. Since the population was limited to a hospitalized patient cohort the results cannot be extrapolated to milder formed of COVID-19 that did not require hospitalization. The influence of age and co-morbidities were not analyzed due to the small sample size. Furthermore, this study does not include a suitable control cohort. Although studies have reported acute neurological symptoms after COVID-19, our study is one of the first to examine the persistence of neurologic symptoms at 3-months. Studies examining pathophysiology and the time course of persistent neurologic symptoms after COVID-19 are needed. Our findings emphasize the importance of continued evaluation and focused rehabilitation for functional, cognitive and neurobehavioral consequences in COVID-19 survivors.

    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.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.10.16.20211029v1 on medRxiv