The short-term and long-term prognosis of discharged COVID-19 patients in Guangdong during the first wave of pandemic

BACKGROUD People are increasingly concerned about the rehabilitation and sustained sequelae of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection. Our study aimed to investigate the sequelae of patients’ psychological and physical condition and its related risk factors in the early and late stages. METHODS This longitudinal study was conducted on 281 COVID-19 patients discharged from the first wave of pandemic. Patients were followed up for 12 months with constantly evaluation of psychological and physical condition, the follow-up was divided into early and late stage to observe the development of psychological and physical condition, data were collected and analyzed to find out its risk factors. RESULTS COVID-19 survivors had psychological and physical sequelae in the early and late stages, such as depression, anxiety, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), sleep disorder, and functional damage in heart, liver, kidney and lung. The incidence of sequelae in the late stage decreased comparing to the early stage, the proportion of depression decreased by 10.0%, anxiety by 3.6%, PTSD by 2.9%, liver abnormality by 13.6%, cardiac by 2.2%, renal by 9.6%, and pulmonary by 27.4%. In two stages, gender, age, severity of COVID-19, hospitalization time and various comorbidities were significantly associated with psychological or physical sequelae. CONCLUSION We noticed that psychological and physical sequelae occurred to COVID-19 survivors in short and long stages, and these would gradually decrease as time went on. Male gender, age >50 years old, severe clinical condition, longer hospitalization time and comorbidity history were risk factors that significantly affected the rehabilitation of COVID-19 patients.