Previously submitted to: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (no longer under consideration since Jan 08, 2024)
Date Submitted: Jan 5, 2024
Open Peer Review Period: Jan 8, 2024 - Jan 8, 2024
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
NOTE: This is an unreviewed Preprint
Warning: This is a unreviewed preprint (What is a preprint?). Readers are warned that the document has not been peer-reviewed by expert/patient reviewers or an academic editor, may contain misleading claims, and is likely to undergo changes before final publication, if accepted, or may have been rejected/withdrawn (a note "no longer under consideration" will appear above).
Peer review me: Readers with interest and expertise are encouraged to sign up as peer-reviewer, if the paper is within an open peer-review period (in this case, a "Peer Review Me" button to sign up as reviewer is displayed above). All preprints currently open for review are listed here. Outside of the formal open peer-review period we encourage you to tweet about the preprint.
Citation: Please cite this preprint only for review purposes or for grant applications and CVs (if you are the author).
Final version: If our system detects a final peer-reviewed "version of record" (VoR) published in any journal, a link to that VoR will appear below. Readers are then encourage to cite the VoR instead of this preprint.
Settings: If you are the author, you can login and change the preprint display settings, but the preprint URL/DOI is supposed to be stable and citable, so it should not be removed once posted.
Submit: To post your own preprint, simply submit to any JMIR journal, and choose the appropriate settings to expose your submitted version as preprint.
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Prevalence and risk factors of Long COVID 3 months after infection during the outbreak of COVID-19 at the end of 2022 in China: A cross-sectional survey
ABSTRACT
Background:
Long COVID has caused substantial health burdens on COVID-19 patients. Following the changes of COVID-19 prevention and control measures in China at the end of 2022, there was a notable surge in the number of infections. Nevertheless, few studies have been conducted to explore the prevalence and risk factors of Long COVID among patients during this outbreak.
Objective:
This cross-sectional survey aimed to investigate the prevalence, symptoms, and risk factors of Long COVID among patients in China.
Methods:
We surveyed 533 individuals in China through a systematical questionnaire designed for Long COVID specifically, and a total of 436 COVID-19 patients were included in the analysis. The questionnaire included demographics, vaccination status, comorbidities, self-perceived symptoms, behavioral habits and dietary conditions. Prevalence of Long COVID, frequencies of symptoms, and risk factors were analyzed.
Results:
115 (26.38%) patients reported at least one symptom of Long COVID. The six most reported symptoms were fatigue (46.96%), coughing and wheezing (18.26%), attention disorder (18.26%), anxiety (15.65%), hair loss (15.65%) and cough (14.78%). Compared with patients aged 18-29 years, those aged 30-39 years (OR 2.367, 95%CI 1.066-5.256, p < 0.05) had a higher risk of developing Long COVID. Having sleep problems (2.324, 1.462-3.693, p < 0.001) was identified as associated risk factor of Long COVID. Compared to no exercise, engaging in light exercise (0.463, 0.262-0.818, p < 0.01) was identified as associated protective factor.
Conclusions:
Our study revealed that since the outbreak of COVID-19 in China at the end of 2022, many infections have experienced persistent symptoms associated with Long COVID, imposing substantial health burdens on COVID-19 patients. The risk factors associated with Long COVID identified in this study can serve as valuable references for developing effective interventions aimed at facilitating recovery among COVID-19 patients.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.