A holistic analysis of symptom profiles among people with long COVID-19 in India: A prospective 1-year follow-up study

Objectives: Examining the health of COVID-19 patients after hospitalization, with a focus on monitoring common and incapacitating symptoms at four weeks and a year after discharge, is a seldom investigated topic that may yield important information about long-term consequences. Methods: Patients who had been admitted for treatment after exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms underwent multiple choice semi-structured interviews in April 2021, followed by a follow-up interview in May 2022. We intended to look into the levels of recovery, the effect on functional abilities, quality of life, fatigue scores, mental health, activity of daily living, and an overall spectrum of symptoms. Results: Out of 350 participants, 148 respondents (42.3 %) recovered after 1 year of illness and 202 (57.7 %) were still experiencing symptoms at the time of survey completion. In our survey, fatigue (97.1 %), dyspnoea (86.6 %), dry cough (83.4 %), joint pain (83.4 %), tingling in limbs (74.6 %), myalgia (59.1 %) and were visible even after 1 year but with reduced severity. Statistically significant change was noticed in fatigue scores, quality of life, mental health and activity of daily living among long COVID survivors at baseline and after 1 year. Conclusions: The frequency of symptoms in our study fits within this fairly broad range noted in literature. Nonetheless, our data do not appear to support the hypothesis that symptoms that linger following COVID-19 are self-limiting: the prevalence of persisting symptoms in our study did not decrease with time.