Evidence Hub

Post-covid syndrome in individuals admitted to hospital with covid-19: retrospective cohort study

D. Ayoubkhani, K. Khunti, V. Nafilyan, T. Maddox, Ben Humberstone, I. Diamond, A. Banerjee

British medical journal, 2021

50 participants · 677 citations

Abstract

Abstract Objective To quantify rates of organ specific dysfunction in individuals with covid-19 after discharge from hospital compared with a matched control group from the general population. Design Retrospective cohort study. Setting NHS hospitals in England. Participants 47 780 individuals (mean age 65, 55% men) in hospital with covid-19 and discharged alive by 31 August 2020, exactly matched to controls from a pool of about 50 million people in England for personal and clinical characteristics from 10 years of electronic health records. Main outcome measures Rates of hospital readmission (or any admission for controls), all cause mortality, and diagnoses of respiratory, cardiovascular, metabolic, kidney, and liver diseases until 30 September 2020. Variations in rate ratios by age, sex, and ethnicity. Results Over a mean follow-up of 140 days, nearly a third of individuals who were discharged from hospital after acute covid-19 were readmitted (14 060 of 47 780) and more than 1 in 10 (5875) died after discharge, with these events occurring at rates four and eight times greater, respectively, than in the matched control group. Rates of respiratory disease (P<0.001), diabetes (P<0.001), and cardiovascular disease (P<0.001) were also significantly raised in patients with covid-19, with 770 (95% confidence interval 758 to 783), 127 (122 to 132), and 126 (121 to 131) diagnoses per 1000 person years, respectively. Rate ratios were greater for individuals aged less than 70 than…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a cohort study, done in people. Its evidence level is 3 of 5 (Moderate · trial / cohort / secondary analysis). Trials without a large randomized design, cohorts and secondary analyses give moderate evidence. Reported size: 50 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free