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

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 Q...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Carolina Muñoz-Corona, Lizeth Guadalupe Gutiérrez-Canales, Claudia Ortiz-Ledesma, Liz Jovanna Martínez-Navarro, Alejandro E. Macías, David Alejandro Scavo-Montes, Eduardo Guaní-Guerra
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publishing 2022-07-01
Series:Journal of International Medical Research
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1177/03000605221110492
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Summary: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.
ISSN:1473-2300