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Irene Vega
The study carried out by the URJC, in collaboration with the Hospital Clínico Universitario de Valladolid and the University of Valencia, has carried out a comparison on the presence of post-COVID symptoms two years after SARS-CoV-2 infection among hospitalized patients and not hospitalized during the first wave of the pandemic, between March and April 2020.
The main finding of this research is that no significant differences have been observed in post-COVID-19 symptoms between patients who had to be hospitalized and those who had a milder illness. "The proportion of patients with at least one post-COVID-19 symptom two years after the acute infection was 59,7% for hospitalized patients and 67,5% for those who did not require hospitalization," says the research team. research.
To carry out this epidemiological studypublished in the scientific journal Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) network open, two urban hospitals in Madrid and several general medicine centers collaborated with a sample of 360 hospitalized patients and 308 non-hospitalized patients with acute SARS-CoV-2 infection during the first wave of the pandemic ( between March 20 to April 30, 2020). Subsequently, follow-up was carried out for two years by means of a telephone interview. During the investigation, they were systematically evaluated for the presence of post-COVID-19 symptoms, with particular attention to symptoms that began after infection. “Patients who were interviewed, both hospitalized and non-hospitalized, were asked to specify which symptoms began a month or a month and a half after infection. Therefore, we can conclude that those symptoms to which they refer are the typical ones associated with COVID”, indicates César Fernández de las Peñas, professor of Physiotherapy at the URJC and lead author of the study.
Pioneering study that opens the door to new research
This study is the first to compare the presence of post-COVID symptoms between hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients followed up for two years after infection with the variant identified in Wuhan, China. Demographic data (age, gender, height, and weight) and clinical data (COVID-19-associated symptoms at baseline and pre-existing medical comorbidities) were collected, as well as information on hospitalization (admission to the intensive care unit and length of stay). hospital stay) from the patients' medical records. "From this study, we have also carried out comparative studies of different variants between the first variant of Wuhan, the third of Alpha and the fifth wave of Delta with follow-ups of six months and we have observed that the symptoms are very similar", points out the investigator.
The post-COVID symptoms that were systematically evaluated were mainly dyspnea, fatigue, anosmia, pain, and loss of concentration, among others. In addition, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) was used to assess anxiety or depressive symptoms and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) to assess sleep quality. "Possibly the first variant was the most devastating with respect to the symptom of fatigue and it is to be expected that in future studies the different variants, including the one that seems to remain, which is Omicron, can determine the same consequences, although probably in a lower percentage . As is being observed, post-COVID symptoms are higher in the first waves and it is yet to be confirmed that with Ómicron they are 20 or 25%,” says César Fernández de las Peñas.
In addition, as the researcher warns, "the data from this study alert the scientific and clinical community to the need to create units for the identification and management of patients with persistent COVID due to the millions of people affected that the systems are going to face." health of the world”.