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Post-COVID-19 tele-survey for persistent symptoms in a single center hospital cohort in India along with a parallel country-wide web-survey
Preprint
in English
| medRxiv
| ID: ppmedrxiv-22271119
ABSTRACT
IntroductionA major concern amidst the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has been the longer term persistence of morbidities in individuals recovering from COVID-19 disease, called long COVID. We aimed at documenting the prevalence and key associations of post-COVID symptoms (PCS) in India in telephonic survey among recovered patients in a single hospital in eastern India as well as a parallel web-survey covering a wider population of the country. MethodsSelf-reported PCS, ranging up to one year since the original COVID-19 diagnosis, were documented in a telephonic survey of subjects (analyzed N=986), treated for acute COVID-19 in Infectious Diseases and Beleghata General Hospital, Kolkata, between April 1, 2020 and April 13, 2021. In parallel, we ran a web-based survey (analyzed N=580), to evaluate concordance. ResultsShortness of breath, fatigue and insomnia were identified to be the most commonly reported PCS in both the surveys, with higher prevalence in females. In the telephonic survey, a 3.65% post-discharge mortality was registered within a median of 39 days since COVID diagnosis. Intensive care during acute disease and hypertension were more often associated with PCS, while fatigue was more often reported by the 20-40 years age-group. The web-survey revealed a gradual decline in PCS with time since COVID-19 diagnosis and type 2 diabetes to be associated with higher prevalence of these symptoms. ConclusionsWe assessed the predominant PCS among Indian COVID-19 patients and identified key demographic and clinical associations in our surveys, which warrants deeper epidemiological and mechanistic studies for guiding management of long-COVID in the country.
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Full text:
Available
Collection:
Preprints
Database:
medRxiv
Type of study:
Cohort_studies
/
Experimental_studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Language:
English
Year:
2022
Document type:
Preprint