Prevalence of Long COVID-19 and its Impact on Quality of Life Among Outpatients With Mild COVID-19 Disease at Tertiary Care Center in North India
Radhika Sarda, Arvind Kumar, Ankit Chandra, Megha Bir, Sanchit Kumar, Manish Soneja, Sanjeev Sinha, Naveet Wig
Abstract
Literature is lacking on the spectrum of symptoms of long COVID-19 (defined as symptoms persisting beyond 28 days of diagnosis) and its impact on quality of life. This single-center, cross-sectional study included mild COVID-19 cases as determined by a positive real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction test. Patients were contacted at least 28 days after diagnosis and were interviewed telephonically using semi-structured questionnaires for duration of symptoms, fatigue using Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS) and quality of life using the World Health Organization Quality of Life: Brief Version (WHOQOL-BREF). A total of 251 COVID-19 patients were included; of which 169 (67.3%) were males. The mean age of the patients was 35.8 years (SD = 12.5). The prevalence of long COVID-19 was 28.2% (n = 71, 95% CI: 23.0-34.2). The most common symptoms involved the musculoskeletal system (12.7%), upper respiratory tract (7.6%), and fatigue among 17 (6.8%) patients. Patients with long COVID-19 had significantly higher FSS score and lower WHOQOL-BREF score compared to the patients without long COVID-19 (<28 days).