The long-term adverse events and persisting clinical symptomatology post COVID-19 infection among the healthcare workers of a tertiary care hospital in West Bengal
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20230650Keywords:
Post-COVID-19 infection, Long-term adverse events, Persisting clinical symptomatology, Healthcare workersAbstract
COVID -19, a global pandemic, has dominated every person’s life worldwide. The clinical presentation of COVID-19 ranges from asymptomatic, mild symptomatic to fulminant and fatal cases, having consequences for many organ systems. In a cross-sectional study, 128 healthcare workers of a tertiary care medical college hospital, 4 weeks following the COVID infection agreed to participate in the study. Self-developed subject data sheet and the self-reporting symptoms tool based on the WHO case report form were used for data collection. A significant number of health care workers (HCWs) had long COVID symptomatology in terms of constitutional, muscular-skeletal, respiratory, otolaryngology, and CNS symptoms. The commonly experienced symptoms were myalgia (45.3%), malaise (39%), fatigue and tiredness (69.5%), loss of taste (21.1%), loss of smell (20.3%) and night sweats (11.7%), lack of sleep (20.3%), and anxiety (12.5%). The cardiovascular and integumentary were the less affected organ systems. About one-third of the HCWs reported that symptoms like myalgia, malaise and tiredness got worse after physical activity (29.7%). Aggravation of symptoms with any form of mental activity was reported in 11.7% of the study participants. One in every ten HCWs (12.5%) had reported not being able to perform daily activities that they were doing before getting COVID-19 infection. However, all resumed their job after the recovery. Long COVID symptoms were reported by a significant number of HCWs, necessitating the need for the establishment of follow-up clinics for the care of healthcare workers.
Metrics
References
Osikomaiya B, Erinoso O, Wright KO, Odusola AO, Thomas B, Adeyemi O, et al. ‘Long COVID’: persistent COVID-19 symptoms in survivors managed in Lagos State, Nigeria. BMC Infect Dis. 2021;21(1):304.
Wu Z, McGoogan JM. Characteristics of and important lessons from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in China: summary of a report of 72 314 cases from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. JAMA. 2020;323(13):1239.
Lauer SA, Grantz KH, Bi Q, Jones FK, Zheng Q, Meredith HR, et al. The incubation period of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from publicly reported confirmed cases: estimation and application. Ann Intern Med. 2020;172(9):577-82.
CDC. COVID-19 and your health. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/index.html. Accessed on 25 October 2022.
Jelly P, Chadha L, Kaur N, Sharma S, Sharma R, Stephen S, et al. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the psychological status of pregnant women. Cureus. 2021;13(1).
Nasserie T, Hittle M, Goodman SN. Assessment of the frequency and variety of persistent symptoms among patients with COVID-19: a systematic review. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(5):2111417.
Internet Archive Blogs. COVID-19 archives. Available at: https://blog.archive.org/tag/covid-19/. Accessed on 25 October 2022.
Halpin SJ, McIvor C, Whyatt G, Adams A, Harvey O, McLean L, et al. Post discharge symptoms and rehabilitation needs in survivors of COVID‐19 infection: a cross‐sectional evaluation. J Med Virol. 2021;93(2):1013-22.
Chopra S, Ranjan P, Singh V, Kumar S, Arora M, Hasan MS, et al. Impact of COVID-19 on lifestyle-related behaviours-a cross-sectional audit of responses from nine hundred and ninety-five participants from India. Diabetes Metab Syndr. 2020;14(6):2021-30.
Lopez-Leon S, Wegman-Ostrosky T, Perelman C, Sepulveda R, Rebolledo PA, Cuapio A, et al. More than 50 long-term effects of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis. MedRxiv Prepr Serv Health Sci. 2021;2021.
Groff D, Sun A, Ssentongo AE, Ba DM, Parsons N, Poudel GR, et al. Short-term and long-term rates of postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection: a systematic review. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(10):2128568.
Aiyegbusi OL, Hughes SE, Turner G, Rivera SC, McMullan C, Chandan JS, et al. Symptoms, complications and management of long COVID: a review. J R Soc Med. 2021;114(9):428-42.