Exploring the Prevalence of Long-Covid and its Factors among Post-Covid Survivors of Karachi
Keywords:
COVID-19, Medical professionals, Symptoms, Work performanceAbstract
Long COVID or post-COVID problems are long-term effects of COVID-19 infection that certain people who have contracted the virus can experience. This may result in having persistent symptoms for 3 months or more, such as those who had tiredness, malaise, changed smell and taste, dyspnea, and cognitive deficits three or more months after their initial COVID-19 diagnosis. However, some people may still have inferior work performance and a lower quality of life due to the long COVID episodes. From October 2021 to April 2022, cross-sectional research was conducted in Karachi, utilizing an electronic questionnaire to record sociodemographic data, current comorbidities, and previous episodes of acute COVID-19, post-COVID symptoms, and job performance among COVID survivors. The study's findings revealed that more than 35% of individuals surveyed claimed to have had COVID symptoms for six weeks or more, with approximately 20% to 30% of those reporting frequent coughing and appetite loss. Planning prevention, rehabilitation, and clinical treatment need an awareness of long-term COVID and its related components in order to maximize recovery and long-term COVID-19 outcomes.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.59564/amrj/01.01/007
References
Long Covid or post-covid conditions [Internet]. 2023. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/index.html
Long covid: What do the latest data show? KFF. 2023. Available from: https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/long-covid-what-do-latest-data-show.
Nearly one in five American adults who have had COVID-19 still has "long covid". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2022. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/20220622.htm.
Michelen M, Manoharan L, Elkheir N, Cheng V, Dagens A, Hastie C, O’Hara M, Suett J, Dahmash D, Bugaeva P. Characterising Long COVID: A Living Systematic Review. BMJ Global Health, 6, e005427.
Aiyegbusi OL, Hughes SE, Turner G, Rivera SC, McMullan C, Chandan JS, Haroon S, Price G, Davies EH, Nirantharakumar K, Sapey E. Symptoms, complications and management of long COVID: a review. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 2021 Sep;114(9):428-42.
Groff D, Sun A, Ssentongo AE, Ba DM, Parsons N, Poudel GR, Lekoubou A, Oh JS, Ericson JE, Ssentongo P, Chinchilli VM. Short-term and long-term rates of postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection: a systematic review. JAMA network open. 2021 Oct 1;4(10):e2128568-.
Ayoubkhani D, Bermingham C, Pouwels KB, Glickman M, Nafilyan V, Zaccardi F, Khunti K, Alwan NA, Walker AS. Trajectory of long covid symptoms after covid-19 vaccination: community based cohort study. Bmj. 2022 May 18;377.
Al-Aly Z, Xie Y, Bowe B. High-dimensional characterization of post-acute sequelae of COVID-19. Nature. 2021; 594(7862):259–64.
Rogers JP, Chesney E, Oliver D, Pollak TA, McGuire P, Fusar-Poli P, et al. Psychiatric and neuropsychiatric presentations associated with severe coronavirus infections: a systematic review and metaanalysis with comparison to the COVID-19 pandemic. Lancet Psychiatry. 2020; 7(7):611–27.
Arjun MC, Singh AK, Pal D, et al. Prevalence, characteristics, and predictors of Long COVID among diagnosed cases of COVID-19. medRxiv 2022 preprint; Available from:
https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.04.21268536.
Naik S, Haldar SN, Soneja M, et al. Post COVID-19 sequelae: A prospective observational study from Northern India. Drug Discov Ther. 2021;15(5):254-60.
Budhiraja S, Aggarwal M, Wig R, et al. Long Term Health Consequences of COVID-19 in Hospitalized Patients from North India: A follow up study of upto 12 months. medRxiv. 2021 ; Available from: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.21.21258543v1.
Hossain MA, Hossain KMA, Saunders K, et al. Prevalence of Long COVID symptoms in Bangladesh: a prospective Inception Cohort Study of COVID-19 survivors. BMJ Glob Health. 2021 ;6(12):e006838.
Qamar MA, Martins RS, Dhillon RA, et al. Residual symptoms and the quality of life in individuals recovered from COVID-19 infection: A survey from Pakistan. Ann Med Surg (Lond). 2022;75:103361.
O'Mahoney LL, Routen A, Gillies C, Ekezie W, Welford A, Zhang A, Karamchandani U, Simms-Williams N, Cassambai S, Ardavani A, Wilkinson TJ. The prevalence and long-term health effects of Long Covid among hospitalised and non-hospitalised populations: A systematic review and meta-analysis. EClinicalMedicine. 2023 Jan 1;55:101762.
Moy FM, Hairi NN, Lim ER, Bulgiba A. Long COVID and its associated factors among COVID survivors in the community from a middle-income country—An online cross-sectional study. Plos one. 2022 Aug 30;17(8):e0273364.
Huang C, Huang L, Wang Y, Li X, Ren L, Gu X, et al. 6-month consequences of COVID-19 in patients discharged from hospital: a cohort study. Lancet (London, England). 2021; 397(10270):220–32.
Taquet M, Dercon Q, Luciano S, Geddes JR, Husain M, Harrison PJ. Incidence, co-occurrence, and evolution of long-COVID features: A 6-month retrospective cohort study of 273,618 survivors of COVID19. PLoS Med. 2021; 18(9):e1003773-e.
van Kessel SAM, Olde Hartman TC, Lucassen PLBJ, van Jaarsveld CHM. Post-acute and longCOVID-19 symptoms in patients with mild diseases: a systematic review. Fam Pract. 2021:cmab076.
Alkodaymi MS, Omrani OA, Fawzy NA, Shaar BA, Almamlouk R, Riaz M, et al. Prevalence of postacute COVID-19 syndrome symptoms at different follow-up periods: A systematic review and metaanalysis. Clin Microbiol Infect. 2022:S1198-743X(22)00038-6.
Davis HE, Assaf GS, McCorkell L, Wei H, Low RJ, Re’em Y, et al. Characterizing long COVID in an international cohort: 7 months of symptoms and their impact. EClinicalMedicine. 2021; 38:101019.
Aiyegbusi OL, Hughes SE, Turner G, Rivera SC, McMullan C, Chandan JS, et al. Symptoms, complications and management of long COVID: a review. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 2021; 114 (9):428–42.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Dr. Sobia Majeed, Dr. Imran Ahmed Khan, Dr. Tahira Tariq
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
