Study of quality of life related to health in patients with Covid-19 on the first day of admission to hospital

Abstract

The COVID‑19 pandemic has resulted in exceptional social disruption and consequent changes in quality of life. Assessment of the health-related quality of life in patients infected with the SARS-CoV‑2 (2019-nCoV) virus in a covid hospital is an urgent public health issue that affects the organization of medical care processes and the planning of rehabilitation programs. Purpose of the study is to determine the level of health-related quality of life in patients with COVID‑19 on the first day of inpatient treatment for comparison with pre-pandemic norms and planning targeted rehabilitation programs. Materials and methods. A study of the quality of life was carried out using the EuroQol EQ‑5D‑5L questionnaire assessing the Index EQ and EQ VAS indicators. Using the method of simple random sampling, the data of patients were collected for three sets having following features: “Both sexes”, “Men”, “Women”. The analysis was carried out using descriptive statistics methods. Results. The indicators of health-related quality of life in patients with COVID‑19 on the first day after admission are lower than the pre-pandemic population norms for Moscow residents according to Index EQ by 20%, according to EQ VAS by 29%, on average. Women have more health limitations than men in all EQ‑5D‑5L domains, which is proportionally lower than population norms. In 3,7% of patients on admission to the hospital, the type of quality of life corresponded to “a condition worse than death”, which was practically not observed in the pre-pandemic period in Moscow residents. The greatest losses are observed in the “Self-Care” and “Mobility” domains, both for men and women. On admission to the hospital, no differences were found in the pre-pandemic and pandemic levels of health limitations in the “Anxiety/Depression” domain. Conclusions. The results of the study can be used by specialists from various branches to plan clinical, service, educational, economic, and other public health programs related to the rehabilitation of patients who have had COVID‑19. And it also represents an indispensable additional material for further sociological and clinical research.