Using a new symptom-based score, severe disease symptoms in the acute phase and low psychosocial resilience were identified as risk factors for post-COVID syndrome.
Post-COVID syndrome (PCS) is characterized by a persistent symptom burden (>3 months) and worsening of preexisting comorbidity. The causes and long-term impact of PCS on the health care system are still unclear, in part because efficient tools to assess the presence and severity of PCS have not yet been established.
In the population-based cohort study COVIDOM, SARS-CoV-2 infected patients were recruited between November 15, 2020 and September 29, 2021 from Kiel, Berlin, Würzburg. Main inclusion criteria were a minimum age of 18 years, PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, and a period of at least 6 months between infection and COVIDOM study center visit (n=1,400).
For this work, the researchers used the so-called PCS score for the first time to put the severity of a PCS into a standardized scheme (eClinical Medicine 2022; DOI: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2022.101549).
“As expected, severe disease symptoms in the acute phase increased the risk of post-COVID syndrome. Surprisingly, however, low psychosocial resilience and low resilience could also lead to PCS.”