ABSTRACT
Although COVID-19 was first recognised as an acute respiratory illness, extra-pulmonary manifestations are increasingly being recognised. Acute gastrointestinal side effects have been well reported with COVID-19 infection and are estimated to affect around 17% of patients. With COVID-19 still being a relatively new illness, the chronic gastrointestinal symptoms are less well characterised. Post-infectious irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) can occur following bacterial and viral infections, and with ACE-2 receptors being shown to be present in the gastrointestinal tract and SARS-Cov-2 RNA being present in stool, SARS-CoV-2 is now appreciated as an enteric pathogen. In our study, we survey acute and chronic gastrointestinal symptoms after COVID-19 infection. We have conducted one of the few UK studies on gastrointestinal symptoms, with the longest follow-up duration of 6 months. We have found that gastrointestinal symptoms are common at 6 months, affecting 43.8% of our patients. Further research is needed to explore whether this represents a new post-COVID-19 IBS, which has not previous been described in the literature, including its clinical course and response to any potential medical therapies.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , COVID-19/complications , Gastrointestinal Tract , Humans , RNA, Viral , SARS-CoV-2 , United Kingdom/epidemiologyABSTRACT
In attempts to reduce the spread of COVID-19 among high-risk inflammatory bowel disease patients, many gastroenterology practices have recently gone 'virtual', using telemedicine technologies to care for their patients. In efforts to support this transition and improve approachability, social media platforms have been used to deliver telemedicine services with significant success. However, the patient perspective on this use of social media has largely been ignored. This study provides a baseline patient perspective on social media usage to help inform clinicians on which methods of telemedicine delivery will be best suited to their patient populations.