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Only one in four patients who have been hospitalized for Covid-19 feel fully recovered after 1 year. This has been seen in a study carried out on more than 2,000 patients presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), and published in «The Lancet Respiratory Medicine».
The researchers also found some determining factors in recovery: being female, having obesity and having received mechanical ventilation in the hospital were associated with a lower probability of being fully recovered at one year.
The most common long-term symptoms were fatigue: muscle pain, physical slowdown, lack of sleep, and shortness of breath.
The research used data from a study that looked at adults (ages 18 and older) who had been hospitalized and subsequently discharged.
Patient recovery was assessed using patient-reported measures, physical performance, and organ function at 5 months and 1 year after hospital discharge.
The researchers also took blood samples from the participants at the five-month visit to test for the presence of various inflammatory proteins.
A total of 2,320 participants discharged from the hospital between March 7, 2020, and April 18, 2021, were evaluated 5 months after discharge, and 807 (33%) participants completed the 5-month and 1-year visits at the time. of the analysis (the study is ongoing).
These 807 patients had a mean age of 59 years, 279 (36%) were women, and 28% received invasive mechanical ventilation. The proportion of patients reporting complete recovery was similar at 5 months (26%) and 1 year (29%).
«The poor recovery at 1 year is surprising»says the coordinator of the study, Rachael Evans.
“We found that female gender and obesity were strong risk factors for poorer recovery at 1 year,” Evans adds.
Regarding the lack of existing treatments for persistent Covid, Professor Louise Wain points out that “today there are no specific therapies and our data highlight that effective interventions are urgently required. Our findings of persistent systemic inflammation, especially in those with cognitive problems very severe and moderate groups of deterioration, suggest that these groups could respond to anti-inflammatory strategies”.
Wain explains that the concordance of the severity of physical and mental health decline in persistent Covid “underscores the need not only for close integration between physical and mental health care for these patients with, including assessment and interventions, but also for the transfer of knowledge between health professionals to improve patient care».
The finding also underscores the need for “complex interventions that address physical and mental health impairments to alleviate symptoms. However, specific therapeutic approaches to manage PTSD might also be needed.”
The researchers conclude that these results highlight that there is an “urgent need for health care services to support this large, rapidly growing patient population in whom there is a substantial burden of symptoms, including reduced exercise capacity and related lower quality of life 1 year after hospital discharge».
Without effective treatments, adds Christopher Brightling, “persistent Covid could become a highly prevalent new long-term condition.”
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