tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
Infection
. 2022 Jul 22.
doi: 10.1007/s15010-022-01886-9. Online ahead of print.
Post-COVID-19 condition is not only a question of persistent symptoms: structured screening including health-related quality of life reveals two separate clusters of post-COVID
Benjamin Giszas[SUP] 1 2 [/SUP], Sabine Trommer[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Nane Schüßler[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Andrea Rodewald[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Bianca Besteher[SUP] 5 [/SUP], Jutta Bleidorn[SUP] 6 [/SUP], Petra Dickmann[SUP] 7 8 [/SUP], Kathrin Finke[SUP] 7 9 [/SUP], Katrin Katzer[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Katja Lehmann-Pohl[SUP] 7 [/SUP], Christina Lemhöfer[SUP] 10 [/SUP], Mathias W Pletz[SUP] 7 11 [/SUP], Christian Puta[SUP] 12 13 [/SUP], Stefanie Quickert[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Martin Walter[SUP] 5 [/SUP], Andreas Stallmach[SUP] 4 7 [/SUP], Philipp Alexander Reuken[SUP] 4 7 [/SUP]
Affiliations
Abstract
Purpose: Some patients experience long-term sequelae after infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). However, despite a present post-COVID condition, defined as "any symptom lasting longer than 12 weeks," only a subset of patients search for medical help and therapy.
Method: We invited all adults with a positive real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for SARS-CoV-2 between March 2020 and September 2021 (n = 4091) in the city of Jena to answer a standardized questionnaire including demographic information, the course of the acute infection and current health status. K-means-clustering of quality of life (QoL) was used to explore post-COVID subgroups.
Results: A total of 909 participants at a median interval of 367 (IQR 291/403) days after acute infection were included in the analysis. Of those, 643 (70.7%) complained of having experienced persistent symptoms at the time of the survey. Cluster analysis based on QoL revealed two subgroups of people with persistent post-COVID symptoms. Whereas 189/643 participants (29.4%) showed markedly diminished QoL, normal QoL was detected in 454/643 individuals (70.6%).
Conclusion: Despite persistent symptoms being reported by nearly three quarters of participants, only one-third of these described a significant reduction in QoL (cluster 1), whereas the other two-thirds reported a near-normal QoL (cluster 2), thus indicating a differentiation between "post-COVID disease" and "post-COVID condition". The prevalence of clinically relevant post-COVID disease was at least 20.7%. Health policies should focus on this subset.
Keywords: Cluster analysis; Differentiation; Post-COVID condition; Post-COVID-19; Prevalence; QoL.
. 2022 Jul 22.
doi: 10.1007/s15010-022-01886-9. Online ahead of print.
Post-COVID-19 condition is not only a question of persistent symptoms: structured screening including health-related quality of life reveals two separate clusters of post-COVID
Benjamin Giszas[SUP] 1 2 [/SUP], Sabine Trommer[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Nane Schüßler[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Andrea Rodewald[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Bianca Besteher[SUP] 5 [/SUP], Jutta Bleidorn[SUP] 6 [/SUP], Petra Dickmann[SUP] 7 8 [/SUP], Kathrin Finke[SUP] 7 9 [/SUP], Katrin Katzer[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Katja Lehmann-Pohl[SUP] 7 [/SUP], Christina Lemhöfer[SUP] 10 [/SUP], Mathias W Pletz[SUP] 7 11 [/SUP], Christian Puta[SUP] 12 13 [/SUP], Stefanie Quickert[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Martin Walter[SUP] 5 [/SUP], Andreas Stallmach[SUP] 4 7 [/SUP], Philipp Alexander Reuken[SUP] 4 7 [/SUP]
Affiliations
- PMID: 35869353
- DOI: 10.1007/s15010-022-01886-9
Abstract
Purpose: Some patients experience long-term sequelae after infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). However, despite a present post-COVID condition, defined as "any symptom lasting longer than 12 weeks," only a subset of patients search for medical help and therapy.
Method: We invited all adults with a positive real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for SARS-CoV-2 between March 2020 and September 2021 (n = 4091) in the city of Jena to answer a standardized questionnaire including demographic information, the course of the acute infection and current health status. K-means-clustering of quality of life (QoL) was used to explore post-COVID subgroups.
Results: A total of 909 participants at a median interval of 367 (IQR 291/403) days after acute infection were included in the analysis. Of those, 643 (70.7%) complained of having experienced persistent symptoms at the time of the survey. Cluster analysis based on QoL revealed two subgroups of people with persistent post-COVID symptoms. Whereas 189/643 participants (29.4%) showed markedly diminished QoL, normal QoL was detected in 454/643 individuals (70.6%).
Conclusion: Despite persistent symptoms being reported by nearly three quarters of participants, only one-third of these described a significant reduction in QoL (cluster 1), whereas the other two-thirds reported a near-normal QoL (cluster 2), thus indicating a differentiation between "post-COVID disease" and "post-COVID condition". The prevalence of clinically relevant post-COVID disease was at least 20.7%. Health policies should focus on this subset.
Keywords: Cluster analysis; Differentiation; Post-COVID condition; Post-COVID-19; Prevalence; QoL.