1. Prevalence, risk factors and characterisation of individuals with long COVID using Electronic Health Records in over 1.5 million COVID cases in England.
- Author
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Wang HI, Doran T, Crooks MG, Khunti K, Heightman M, Gonzalez-Izquierdo A, Qummer Ul Arfeen M, Loveless A, Banerjee A, and Van Der Feltz-Cornelis C
- Subjects
- Humans, Male, Female, England epidemiology, Risk Factors, Middle Aged, Prevalence, Adult, Aged, Longitudinal Studies, Young Adult, Adolescent, Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome, Hospitalization statistics & numerical data, Aged, 80 and over, Child, COVID-19 epidemiology, Electronic Health Records, SARS-CoV-2
- Abstract
Objectives: This study examines clinically confirmed long-COVID symptoms and diagnosis among individuals with COVID in England, aiming to understand prevalence and associated risk factors using electronic health records. To further understand long COVID, the study also explored differences in risks and symptom profiles in three subgroups: hospitalised, non-hospitalised, and untreated COVID cases., Methods: A population-based longitudinal cohort study was conducted using data from 1,554,040 individuals with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection via Clinical Practice Research Datalink. Descriptive statistics explored the prevalence of long COVID symptoms 12 weeks post-infection, and Cox regression models analysed the associated risk factors. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to test the impact of right-censoring data., Results: During an average 400-day follow-up, 7.4% of individuals with COVID had at least one long-COVID symptom after acute phase, yet only 0.5% had long-COVID diagnostic codes. The most common long-COVID symptoms included cough (17.7%), back pain (15.2%), stomach-ache (11.2%), headache (11.1%), and sore throat (10.0%). The same trend was observed in all three subgroups. Risk factors associated with long-COVID symptoms were female sex, non-white ethnicity, obesity, and pre-existing medical conditions like anxiety, depression, type II diabetes, and somatic symptom disorders., Conclusions: This study is the first to investigate the prevalence and risk factors of clinically confirmed long-COVID in the general population. The findings could help clinicians identify higher risk individuals for timely intervention and allow decision-makers to more efficiently allocate resources for managing long-COVID., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Prof. Christina Van Der Feltz-Cornelis received travel and accommodation in UK for lectures from The Lloyd Register Foundation and honoraries from Janssen UK and royalties for books on psychiatry. Prof. Christina Van Der Feltz-Cornelis has also received grants from the National Institute for Health Research, British Medical Association, European Union’s Horizon 2020 research programme and the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development. Prof. Amitava Banerjee has received grants and/or fees from the National Institute for Health Research, British Medical Association, UK Research and Innovation, European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA, and AstraZeneca. Dr. Michael G Crooks has received grants, fees and/or non-financial support from the National Institute for Health and Care Research, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Chiesi, GlaxoSmithKline, Philips, and Pfizer. Prof. Kamlesh Khunti was chair of the ethnicity subgroup of the UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and has acted as a consultant, speaker or received grants for investigator-initiated studies from Astra Zeneca and Pfizer. K.K. (chair) and A.B. are members of the National Long Covid Research Group that informs the chief medical officer for England. All other authors have no conflicts of interest to report., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2024
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