Quality of life and persistence of COVID-19 symptoms 90 days after hospital discharge

• Published in: Journal of international medical research Vol. 50; no. 7; p. 3000605221110492
• Main Authors: Muñoz-Corona, Carolina, Gutiérrez-Canales, Lizeth Guadalupe, Ortiz-Ledesma, Claudia, Martínez-Navarro, Liz Jovanna, Macías, Alejandro E., Scavo-Montes, David Alejandro, Guaní-Guerra, Eduardo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01-07-2022; Sage Publications Ltd; SAGE Publishing
• Subjects: Arthralgia; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Fatigue; Hospitals; Humans; Patient Discharge; Prospective Clinical Research Report; Quality of Life; SARS-CoV-2; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Surveys and Questionnaires; long COVID; 36-item Short Form Health Survey; severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; persistent COVID-19 symptoms; coronavirus disease 2019; Quality of life
• ISSN: 0300-0605; 1473-2300; 1473-2300
• DOI: 10.1177/03000605221110492

Objective
We aimed to describe the persistence of symptoms in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and quality of life (QoL) among patients 90 days after their discharge from the hospital for infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and to determine differences in QoL domains concerning the absence or presence of persistent symptoms.
Methods
To measure QoL, we used a validated Spanish version of the 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36).
Results
We included 141 patients. Ninety days after discharge, COVID-19 symptoms persisted in 107 patients (75.9%), with fatigue (55.3%) and joint pain (46.8%) being the most frequent. According to the SF-36, the role-physical score was the dimension with the lowest values (median score, 25; interquartile range, 0–75). Patients with joint pain, fatigue, and dyspnea had lower scores than patients without those symptoms, with 10 of the 13 evaluated SF-36 scales showing lower levels.
Conclusion
Ninety days after hospital discharge from COVID-19 reference centers, most patients had persistent symptoms and had lower SF-36 scores than patients without symptoms. It is important to follow-up patients discharged from the hospital after SARS-CoV-2 infection, ideally through a post-COVID-19 health care clinic and rehabilitation program, to improve QoL in these patients.