Background: A previous study has shown that 81% of the COVID-19 patients had mild or moderate symptoms. However, most studies on the sequelae in COVID-19 patients focused on severe cases and the long-term follow-up studies on the health consequences in non-severe cases are limited. The current study aimed to assess the sequelae of COVID-19 in patients nearly 1 year after diagnosis with a particular focus on the recovery of patients with non-severe COVID-19. Methods: We enrolled 120 patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 discharged from Wuhan Union hospital west district (designated hospital for COVID-19) and Fangcang shelter hospitals between January 29, 2020 and April 1, 2020. All participants were asked to complete a series of questionnaires to assess their symptoms and quality of life and for psychological evaluation. Also, pulmonary function test, chest CT, 6-min walking test (6MWT), routine blood test, liver and kidney function tests, fasting blood glucose test, lipid test, and immunoglobulin G antibody test were performed to evaluate their health. Results: The mean age of the study population was 51.6 ± 10.8 years. Of the 120 patients, 104 (86.7%) were cases of non-severe COVID-19. The follow-up study was performed between November 23, 2020 and January 11, 2021, and the median time between the diagnosis and the follow-up was 314.5 (IQR, 296–338) days. Sleep difficulties, shortness of breath, fatigue, and joint pain were common symptoms observed during follow-up and nearly one-third of the non-severe cases had these symptoms. A total of 50 (41.7%) and 45 (37.5%) patients reported anxiety and depression, respectively. And 18.3% of the patients showed negative results in the IgG test at the follow-up, which correlated with the severity of the infection ( R = 0.203, p = 0.026), and the proportion of IgG negative cases in non-severe COVID-19 patients was higher than that in the severe cases (20.2 vs. 6.3%). Pulmonary diffusion impairment was reported in 30 (26.1%) out of 115 patients, and 24 (24.2%) out of the 99 non-severe cases. The values of forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1), FVC/FEV1, vital capacity (VC), total lung capacity (TLC), and residual volume (RV) were less than the normal range in 1.7, 8.6, 0.9, 11.2, 7.0, and 0.9% of the patients, respectively. A total of 55 (56.7%) out of the 97 patients showed abnormal CT findings, including ground-glass opacities (GGO), bronchiectasis, nodules, lines and bands, and fibrosis. Furthermore, there was a correlation between all the SF-36-domain scores and the duration of hospitalization, pulmonary function, and a 6MWT. Conclusions: At the nearly 1-year follow-up, COVID-19 survivors still had multi-system issues, including those in the respiratory functioning, radiography, quality of life, and anxiety and depression. Moreover, non-severe cases also showed some sequelae and the proportion of IgG negative cases in the non-severe patients was higher than that in severe cases. Therefore, conducting follow-ups and preventing the reinfection of SARS-CoV-2 in this group is necessary.
【저자키워드】 SARS-CoV-2, Sequelae, Follow-up, long-term COVID-19, multi-system assessment, 【초록키워드】 COVID-19, IgG, Anxiety, Depression, 6-min walking test, fatigue, Kidney function, severity, hospital, Infection, Diagnosis, fibrosis, Symptom, pulmonary, Symptoms, ground-glass opacity, Reinfection, Pulmonary function, Health, Pulmonary function test, Chest CT, Immunoglobulin, Sleep, Wuhan, Patient, Pain, severe cases, Mild, age, Quality of life, Psychological, GGO, Antibody test, correlation, liver, moderate, questionnaire, patients, Glucose, Blood, COVID-19 patient, Long-term follow-up, follow-up study, Shortness of breath, IgG test, Volume, study population, CT findings, these symptoms, Severe case, union, impairment, nodules, non-severe cases, diffusion, survivor, 6MWT, Complete, duration of hospitalization, Non-severe case, consequence, joint, lung capacity, expiratory, enrolled, shown, performed, evaluate, proportion, reported, the patient, was performed, less, correlated, discharged, All participant, asked, COVID-19 in patient, fasting blood, FVC, infected with SARS-CoV-2, IQR, non-severe patient, the median, 【제목키워드】 COVID-19, assessment, Year,