Outcomes among confirmed cases and a matched comparison group in the Long-COVID in Scotland study 2022 Hastie et al

[Andy]

Abstract

With increasing numbers infected by SARS-CoV-2, understanding long-COVID is essential to inform health and social care support. A Scottish population cohort of 33,281 laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections and 62,957 never-infected individuals were followed-up via 6, 12 and 18-month questionnaires and linkage to hospitalization and death records.

Of the 31,486 symptomatic infections,1,856 (6%) had not recovered and 13,350 (42%) only partially. No recovery was associated with hospitalized infection, age, female sex, deprivation, respiratory disease, depression and multimorbidity. Previous symptomatic infection was associated with poorer quality of life, impairment across all daily activities and 24 persistent symptoms including breathlessness (OR 3.43, 95% CI 3.29–3.58), palpitations (OR 2.51, OR 2.36–2.66), chest pain (OR 2.09, 95% CI 1.96–2.23), and confusion (OR 2.92, 95% CI 2.78–3.07). Asymptomatic infection was not associated with adverse outcomes. Vaccination was associated with reduced risk of seven symptoms. Here we describe the nature of long-COVID and the factors associated with it.

Open access, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33415-5

 

[Hutan]

There's a good summary of previous epidemiological studies in the introduction with commentary on the problems in these types of studies.

Unfortunately, this one also has a problem with selection bias, due to a low response rate:

Overall, 102,473 (16%) of the 638,125 people invited consented and completed at least one questionnaire: 33,281 (20%) of the 162,957 people who had a positive test, and 69,192 (15%) of the 475,168 invited following only negative tests. Completion rates were 14% (90,578/625,315), 9% (21,963/242,412) and 11% (934/8625) for the 6, 12 and 18 month follow-up questionnaires respectively

People with ongoing symptoms will surely be a lot more likely to respond to the survey.