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Predictors of the prolonged recovery period in COVID-19 patients: a cross-sectional study

Seyedahmad Seyedalinaghi, L. Abbasian, M. Solduzian, Niloofar Ayoobi-Yazdi, F. Jafari, Alireza Adibimehr, A. Farahani, Arezoo Salami Khaneshan et al.

European Journal of Medical Research, 2021

478 participants · 50 citations

Abstract

Background The clinical course of COVID-19 may vary significantly. The presence of comorbidities prolongs the recovery time. The recovery in patients with mild-to-moderate symptoms might take 10 days, while in those with a critical illness or immunocompromised status could take 15 days. Considering the lack of data about predictors that could affect the recovery time, we conducted this study to identify them. Methods This cross-sectional study was implemented in the COVID-19 clinic of a teaching and referral university hospital in Tehran. Patients with the highly suggestive symptoms who had computed tomography (CT) imaging results with typical findings of COVID-19 or positive results of reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) were enrolled in the study. Inpatient and outpatient COVID-19 participants were followed up by regular visits or phone calls, and the recovery period was recorded. Results A total of 478 patients were enrolled. The mean age of patients was 54.11 ± 5.65 years, and 44.2% were female. The median time to recovery was 13.5 days (IQR: 9). Although in the bivariate analysis, multiple factors, including hypertension, fever, diabetes mellitus, gender, and admission location, significantly contributed to prolonging the recovery period, in multivariate analysis, only dyspnea had a significant association with this variable ( p = 0.02, the adjusted OR of 2.05; 95% CI 1.12–3.75). Conclusion This study supports that dyspnea is a predictor of recovery…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a cross-sectional, done in people. Its evidence level is 4 of 5 (Low · observational). Observational designs can show an association but not prove cause. Reported size: 478 participants or records.

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