Survivors of symptomatic COVID-19 likely to have impaired wellbeing

People who experienced symptomatic COVID-19 are more likely to suffer from feelings of nervousness, anxiousness, and tension than those who had oligosymptomatic disease, a recent study has found. Such an effect appears to be pronounced in women and younger survivors.

The study included 172 COVID-19 survivors (group 1), of whom 104 had symptomatic (group 1a) and 68 had oligosymptomatic (group 1b) disease. Wellbeing outcomes were measured using a standardized interview questionnaire and compared against 172 COVID-19-negative patients with chronic heart disease (group 2) and 81 population controls (group 3).

Comparisons across groups revealed that both groups 1 and 2 suffered from worse psychological state than population controls but did not significantly differ from each other.

For instance, a significantly higher proportion of participants reported frequent feelings of nervousness, anxiousness, and tension in groups 1 and 2 vs 3 (25 percent and 21.6 percent vs 9.9 percent; p=0.01 and p=0.02, respectively). The same was true for irritability and fear that something terrible might happen.

Moreover, comparing groups 1a and 1b revealed that those who experienced symptomatic disease were more likely to feel that their overall health became worse or much worse during vs before the pandemic (49.02 percent vs 22.39 percent). Conversely, only 50.98 percent of group 1a perceived their state of health to be better or excellent amid COVID-19, as opposed to 77.61 percent in group 1b.

“Our study delivers important information regarding influence of pandemic on general wellbeing, but is based on relatively small sample size, so further studies are needed,” the researchers said.