Symptoms and risk factors for long COVID in non-hospitalized adults

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is associated with a range of persistent symptoms impacting everyday functioning, known as post-COVID-19 condition or long COVID. We undertook a retrospective matched cohort study using a UK-based primary care database, Clinical Practice Research Datalink Aurum, to determine symptoms that are associated with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection beyond 12 weeks in non-hospitalized adults and the risk factors associated with developing persistent symptoms. We selected 486,149 adults with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and 1,944,580 propensity score-matched adults with no recorded evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Outcomes included 115 individual symptoms, as well as long COVID, defined as a composite outcome of 33 symptoms by the World Health Organization clinical case definition. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) for the outcomes. A total of 62 symptoms were significantly associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection after 12 weeks. The largest aHRs were for anosmia (aHR 6.49, 95% CI 5.02–8.39), hair loss (3.99, 3.63–4.39), sneezing (2.77, 1.40–5.50), ejaculation difficulty (2.63, 1.61–4.28) and reduced libido (2.36, 1.61–3.47). Among the cohort of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2, risk factors for long COVID included female sex, belonging to an ethnic minority, socioeconomic deprivation, smoking, obesity and a wide range of comorbidities. The risk of developing long COVID was also found to be increased along a gradient of decreasing age. SARS-CoV-2 infection is associated with a plethora of symptoms that are associated with a range of sociodemographic and clinical risk factors.

Effects of Chinese medicine for COVID-19 rehabilitation: a multicenter observational study

“…Although the number of published papers on COVID-19 has increased, many questions still remain and available treatment options are limited [ 5 ], in particular regarding the “long COVID” situation [ 13 ]. According to the National COVID-19 Diagnosis and Treatment Guidelines, COVID-19 patients suffer from two particular CM Syndromes during their rehabilitation phase—Qi Deficiency of Lung and Spleen Syndrome (“fèi pí liǎng xū”, “肺脾兩虛”) and the Qi and Yin Deficiency Syndrome (“qì yīn liǎng xū”, “氣陰兩虛”).…”

Long covid: Hair loss and sexual dysfunction are among wider symptoms, study finds

“…Electronic health records of 2.4 million people in the UK from January 2020 to April 2021 were analysed for a study published in Nature Medicine 1. The cohort included 486 149 people with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection who were not admitted to hospital, matched with a control group of 1.9 million people with no recorded evidence of coronavirus infection.…”

The Nature of Long COVID and its Solution

“…And it ultimately follows that the more diverse the diseases that are immunologically linked with the disease the pathogen causes are, the broader such spectrum of outcomes will be so that diseases that are caused by pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2, which are immunologically linked with diseases that are so diverse that the outcomes in so many patients, such as those severely ill patients with multiorgan manifestations and those with long COVID, are totally different from what clinicians expect it to be, must necessarily be linked with the broadest spectra of outcomes. This consequence has found representation in reality 4,5,6 and the range of clinical abnormalities in the long-term consequences of COVID-19 have been described as unprecedented. 6 It was recently concluded that additional research is needed to describe the natural history of long COVID and characterize symptom clusters, their pathophysiology and clinical outcomes and ultimately to develop targeted treatments.…”