Study highlights widespread long Covid among former patients

RESEARCH showing widespread long Covid among former hospital patients shows a need for continued support, a Dundee lung expert has said.

The detailed UK-wide study reveals seven in 10 hospitalised Covid-19 patients were not fully recovered months later.

It also found one in five reached the threshold for a new disability.

Dundee University academic and respiratory physician Professor James Chalmers warned a “comprehensive plan” is needed to tackle the issue before it spirals out-of-control.

The study was led by National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre and jointly funded by the NIHR and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

It analysed 1,077 patients who were discharged from hospital between March and November 2020 following an episode of Covid-19. The findings included:

Majority of patients hospitalised with Covid-19 have not fully recovered after five months

Those who experience more persistent symptoms tend to be middle-aged, white females, with underlying health conditions

Little relationship between the severity of initial illness and ongoing symptoms

Cognitive impairment, also referred to as “brain fog”, occurs as a predominant symptom in a sub-set of patients who tend to be older and male.

Professor Chalmers represents Scotland on the Post-Hospitalisation Covid-19 Study management board. He said: “These results are shocking in the sense that so few have fully recovered five months after their stay in hospital and it shows once again this disease has a long tail that we are only beginning to understand.

“It is not necessarily patients who found themselves in ICU who continue to experience these longterm symptoms.

“Even those who would have been regarded as being mildly ill continue to suffer, showing we cannot predict who will experience these symptoms on the severity of the initial illness.”

Researchers found each sufferer had an average of nine persistent symptoms.

The most common symptoms were muscle pain, fatigue, physically slowing down, joint pain or swelling, limb weakness, breathlessness and shortterm memory loss.

The study also reports more than 25% of participants had clinically significant symptoms of anxiety and depression while 12% had symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder.