New Delhi: Shortness of breath and lung impairments are among the persistent symptoms for almost 12 months, experienced by almost half the people who were hospitalised with COVID, according to a study published in The Lancet journal Friday.
The study, based on 1,276 patients from Wuhan in China, however, found that “most of the symptoms” of COVID in hospitalised patients are resolved within 12 months. Hospitalised COVID survivors were less healthy than people who had not been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, irrespective of their age, sex, and pre-existing conditions, the study revealed.
“While most had made a good recovery, health problems persisted in some patients, especially those who had been critically ill during their hospital stay,” researcher Bin Cao, from the National Center for Respiratory Medicine, China-Japan Friendship Hospital in China, said in a statement.
“Our findings suggest that recovery for some patients will take longer than one year, and this should be taken into account when planning delivery of healthcare services post-pandemic,” he said.
Compared with men, women were 1.4 times more likely to report fatigue or muscle weakness, twice as likely to report anxiety or depression, and almost three times as likely to have lung impairment after 12 months.
People who had been treated with corticosteroids during the acute phase of their illness with COVID were 1.5 times as likely to experience fatigue or muscle weakness after 12 months, compared to those who had not been treated with corticosteroids during their illness.
The findings will be important to follow up in future research to better understand why COVID symptoms persist in some people, researchers said.
The authors underlined that their study was focused on a single hospital and so patient outcomes may not be applicable for other settings. Additionally, the study included only a small number of patients who had been admitted to intensive care (94) and findings relating to the most critically ill patients should be interpreted with caution, they added.
