COVID-19: Post-recovery long-term symptoms among patients in Saudi Arabia

After recovery from acute infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), many patients experience long-term symptoms in different body systems. The aim of the present study was to identify these symptoms, their severity, and their duration as a first step in building a...

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Veröffentlicht in:PloS one 2021-12, Vol.16 (12), p.e0260259-e0260259
Hauptverfasser: Khodeir, Mostafa M, Shabana, Hassan A, Rasheed, Zafar, Alkhamiss, Abdullah S, Khodeir, Mohamed, Alkhowailed, Mohammad S, Alharbi, Sami, Alsoghair, Mansour, Alsagaby, Suliman A, Al Abdulmonem, Waleed
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:After recovery from acute infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), many patients experience long-term symptoms in different body systems. The aim of the present study was to identify these symptoms, their severity, and their duration as a first step in building a system to classify post-recovery long-term symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). An online-based cross-sectional survey was administered between September and October 2020. Data regarding the severity of post-recovery symptoms and their duration were collected using an Arabic questionnaire divided into six categories encompassing the 20 most prevalent symptoms. A total of 979 patients recovered from COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia in the study period, of whom 53% were male and 47% were female. The most common symptoms included general fatigue and weakness (73% each), with moderate severity of neurological symptoms including mood changes (41%) and insomnia (39%). Among the special senses, loss of smell and taste of marked severity were reported by 64% and 55% among respiratory symptoms, cough of mild severity (47%), and dyspnea of moderate severity (43%). Loss of appetite of moderate severity was reported in 42%, and diarrhea, abdominal pain, and nausea of mild severity were reported by 53%, 50%, and 44% of respondents, respectively. Long-term symptoms after recovery from COVID-19 warrant patient follow-up. The authors propose a classification system as a starting point to guide the identification and follow-up of long-term symptoms post-recovery, and recommend larger-scale studies to broaden the definition of recovery from COVID-19, which appears to have two phases, acute and chronic.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0260259