Persistent Symptoms in Patients After Acute COVID-19.

JAMA. 2020;324(6):603-605

Plain language summary

This short article reports the results of a case series of Italian COVID-19 patients who had been hospitalised for the infection and had recovered (shown by 2 negative PCR tests). The aim was to establish any persistent symptoms and quality of life. 143 patients were included in this study, just over a third were women and age range was 19-84 years (mean 56.5 years). After an average of 2 months after recovery, only 13% reported not having any COVOD-19 related symptoms whilst 32% had 1 or 2 and 55% had 3 or more symptoms. None of the patients had symptoms of acute infection, such as fever. The most common symptoms were fatigue (53%), shortness of breath (43%), joint pain (27%) and chest pain (22%). 44% of patients reported a worsening of quality of life after compared to before the infection. Limitations of the study included lack of information of symptoms prior to COVID-19 infection and symptom severity, small sample size and lack of a control group. The authors note that patients with other types of pneumonia can also have persistent symptoms, and this may therefore not be exclusive to COVID-19.

Lifestyle medicine

Fundamental Clinical Imbalances : Immune and inflammation
Patient Centred Factors : Triggers/Covid-19
Environmental Inputs : Microorganisms
Personal Lifestyle Factors : Not applicable
Functional Laboratory Testing : Not applicable

Methodological quality

Jadad score : Not applicable
Allocation concealment : Not applicable
Publication Type : Journal Article

Metadata

Nutrition Evidence keywords : COVID-19