Female sex, hypertension, number of initial symptoms tied to long COVID risk

The risk of developing long COVID is high among women, hypertensives, and those with a higher number of initial symptoms, and these associations are independent of disease severity and clinical course, a study has found.

The study included 316 patients (mean age 64 years, 59 percent male) with COVID-19 who were discharged followed for 4 months. At admission, the median number of symptoms was five. The most common were hyperthermia (79.1 percent), cough (70.6 percent), dyspnoea (68 percent), and myalgia (50.6 percent).

Over a median follow-up of 115 days after hospital discharge, 201 patients (63.6 percent) had at least one persistent symptom. The most frequent persistent symptoms were dyspnoea (39.2 percent) and asthenia (37.1 percent).

Compared with the group of patients who were symptom-free follow-up, those with long COVID had a higher prevalence of hypertension. Oxygen therapy requirement, admission to intensive care unit, inflammatory markers, and CT-scan abnormalities during hospitalization did not differ between the two groups.

In a multivariate logistic regression model, the odds of having persistent symptoms were significantly associated with female sex (odds ratio [OR], 1.94, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.17–3.22; p=0.01), hypertension (OR, 2.01, 95 percent CI, 1.22–3.31; p<0.01), and a higher number of initial symptoms (OR, 1.35, 95 percent CI, 1.17–1.54; p<0.001).  

On further analysis, the number of persistent symptoms correlated with the number of initial symptoms (adjusted incidence rate ratio [aIRR], 1.16, 95 percent CI, 1.11–1.22; p<0.001), as well as female sex (aIRR, 1.56, 95 percent CI, 1.29–1.87; p<0.001), hypertension (aIRR, 1.23, 95 percent CI, 1.02–1.50; p=0.03), and length of hospital stay (aIRR, 1.01, 95 percent CI, 1.005–1.017; p<0.001).

The present data could be used to target early intervention and promote rehabilitation efforts.