Long-term outcomes in COVID-19 patients who recovered from the first wave of the pandemic

Dan Cui; Simiao Chen; Luzhao Feng; Mengmeng Jia; Yeming Wang; Weijun Xiao; Yanxia Sun; Qiangru Huang; Libing Ma; Zhiwei Leng; Hao Wang; Bin Cao; Weizhong Yang; Juntao Yang; Chen Wang

doi:10.1093/nsr/nwac192

Long-term outcomes in COVID-19 patients who recovered from the first wave of the pandemic

Natl Sci Rev. 2022 Sep 20;9(11):nwac192. doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwac192. eCollection 2022 Nov.

Authors

Dan Cui^{1

2}, Simiao Chen^{3

4}, Luzhao Feng⁴, Mengmeng Jia⁴, Yeming Wang², Weijun Xiao⁴, Yanxia Sun⁴, Qiangru Huang⁴, Libing Ma^{4

5}, Zhiwei Leng⁴, Hao Wang⁴, Bin Cao^{2

6}, Weizhong Yang⁴, Juntao Yang⁷, Chen Wang^{1

2

4

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150086, China.
² Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, National Center for Respiratory Medicine, Center of Respiratory Medicine, National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing 100029, China.
³ Heidelberg Institute of Global Health, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg 69120, Germany.
⁴ School of Population Medicine and Public Health, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100005, China.
⁵ Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the Affiliated Hospital of Guilin Medical University, Guilin, 541001, China.
⁶ Institute of Respiratory Medicine, Chinese Academy of Medical Science, Beijing 100730, China.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Biology, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100005, China.

Abstract

This cross-sectional study evaluated the long-term health effects of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Jianghan District (Wuhan, China). The results showed that 61.4% of COVID-19 patients reported at least one symptom and 8.8% had depressive symptoms at the 17-month follow-up. The proportion of patients with chest radiographic abnormalities in Fangcang shelter hospitals and designated COVID-19 hospitals was 31.6% and 41.1%, respectively, and the proportion of patients with impaired pulmonary diffusion capacity in these hospitals was 52.8% and 60.9%, respectively. Female sex (odds ratio [OR] = 1.48, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.16-1.88), severe disease (OR = 1.46, 95% CI: 1.01-2.10) and a higher number of initial symptoms (OR = 1.31, 95% CI: 1.23-1.40) were associated with the development of sequelae symptoms at 17 months. This study involving community-dwelling COVID-19 adults may help determine the long-term effects of COVID-19 during the first pandemic wave. Nonetheless, larger follow-up studies are needed to characterize the post-COVID-19 condition.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; follow-up studies; post-COVID-19 syndrome.