Whilst the entire world is battling the second wave of COVID-19, a substantial proportion of patients who have suffered from the condition in the past months are reporting symptoms that last for months after recovery, i. e., long-term COVID-19 symptoms. We aimed to assess the current evidence on the long-term symptoms in COVID-19 patients. We did a systematic review on PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, and Google Scholar from database inception to February 15, 2021, for studies on long-term COVID-19 symptoms. We included all type of papers that reported at least one long-term COVID-19 symptom. We screened studies using a standardized data collection form and pooled data from published studies. Cohort cross-sectional, case-report, cases-series, case-control studies, and review were graded using specific quality assessment tools. Of 11,361 publications found following our initial search we assessed 218 full-text articles, of which 145 met all selection criteria. We found that 20.70% of reports on long-term COVID-19 symptoms were on abnormal lung functions, 24.13% on neurologic complaints and olfactory dysfunctions, and 55.17% on specific widespread symptoms, mainly chronic fatigue, and pain. Despite the relatively high heterogeneity of the reviewed studies, our findings highlighted that a noteworthy proportion of patients who have suffered from SARS-CoV-2 infection present a “post-COVID syndrome.” The multifaceted understanding of all aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including these long-term symptoms, will allow us to respond to all the global health challenges, thus paving the way to a stronger public health.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, virus, persistent symptoms, long-term symptoms, long-term sequalae, 【초록키워드】 public health, cross-sectional, SARS-COV-2 infection, COVID-19 pandemic, lung, systematic review, Symptom, database, Symptoms, heterogeneity, Health, Patient, Pain, second wave, COVID-19 symptoms, COVID-19 patients, case-control studies, Evidence, olfactory, criteria, COVID-19 symptom, Google Scholar, Chronic fatigue, Web of Science, functions, initial search, neurologic, widespread, articles, proportion, reported, screened, suffered, respond, reporting symptom, 【제목키워드】 review, persistent, Stage, current,