Post-COVID-19 tele-survey for persistent symptoms in a single center hospital cohort in India along with a parallel country-wide web-survey

Abstract

Introduction A major concern amidst the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has been the longer term persistence of morbidities in individuals recovering from COVID-19 disease, called long COVID. We aimed at documenting the prevalence and key associations of post-COVID symptoms (PCS) in India in telephonic survey among recovered patients in a single hospital in eastern India as well as a parallel web-survey covering a wider population of the country. Methods Self-reported PCS, ranging up to one year since the original COVID-19 diagnosis, were documented in a telephonic survey of subjects (analyzed N=986), treated for acute COVID-19 in Infectious Diseases and Beleghata General Hospital, Kolkata, between April 1, 2020 and April 13, 2021. In parallel, we ran a web-based survey (analyzed N=580), to evaluate concordance. Results Shortness of breath, fatigue and insomnia were identified to be the most commonly reported PCS in both the surveys, with higher prevalence in females. In the telephonic survey, a 3.65% post-discharge mortality was registered within a median of 39 days since COVID diagnosis. Intensive care during acute disease and hypertension were more often associated with PCS, while fatigue was more often reported by the 20-40 years age-group. The web-survey revealed a gradual decline in PCS with time since COVID-19 diagnosis and type 2 diabetes to be associated with higher prevalence of these symptoms. Conclusions We assessed the predominant PCS among Indian COVID-19 patients and identified key demographic and clinical associations in our surveys, which warrants deeper epidemiological and mechanistic studies for guiding management of long-COVID in the country.