Long-Term Symptoms in Hospitalized COVID-19Patients: A Prospective 9-Month Follow-up Study

Backgrounds: this study aimed to investigate persistent symptoms of coronavirus disease2019 (covid-19) patients admitted to a general tertiary teaching hospital during a 9-monthfollow-up period.materials & methods: in this study, 400 hospitalized covid-19 patients in iran werestudied, among them 78 rt-qpcr positive cases were identified from february 19 to march18, 2020. after excluding readmitted and deceased patients, 75 cases underwent in-hospitalfollow-up. out-of-hospital follow-up was done for 57 living patients, of whom four caseswere unreachable, and five cases died after discharge. the remaining 48 participants werefollowed up for nine months, and their symptoms and complaints were checked by regularvisits to the infectious disease clinic and telephone calls via a checklist designed by theauthors.findings: the mean age of rt-qpcr positive hospitalized patients was 54.64 ± 17.42 years,and 38.7% of them were female. overall, five (10.4%) patients complained of dyspnea,three (6.2%) patients of olfactory nerve complications, three (6.2%) patients of persistentfatigue, and two (4.2%) patients of prolonged cough up to the end of the follow-up period.new-onset symptoms were reported in five (10.4%) patients; in most of them (4 out of 5),these symptoms were neurological (urinary retention, tremor with ataxia, distraction, andinsomnia).conclusion: a large proportion of patients who recover from covid-19 infection experienceprolonged symptoms. further investigations should be done to provid more data on theunderlying causes and risk factors of developing these post-covid conditions.