Prevalent symptoms and characteristics of the Long COVID-19 population: a scoping review.
Karina Marques Prediger, Ana Cristina Ribeiro, Sílvia Carla da Silva André Uehara
PMID 39907353WHAT IT FOUND
Fatigue, shortness of breath, smell or taste changes, anxiety, and memory or thinking problems were the symptoms most often reported in Long COVID; adults of both sexes were affected, and diabetes and hypertension were common comorbidities.
Key findings
01Fatigue was reported in 61.5% of the included studies, dyspnoea in 46.1%, smell or taste changes in 38.6%, anxiety in 15.3%, and cognitive impairment in 30.7%.
02The studies reported average ages ranging from 42.4 to 55.5 years in 5 samples, with both men and women included, and diabetes and hypertension as common comorbidities.
039 included studies did not mention vaccination status, and none analysed the association between vaccination and Long COVID symptoms.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This is a scoping review of observational studies and case reports, so it maps reported symptoms and characteristics; it does not test whether a treatment works. The included studies were heterogeneous: 8 cohort studies, 3 case studies, 1 case-control study and 1 descriptive study, so the symptom reports are not combined into one patient sample. The review only included original articles in Portuguese, English or Spanish that were available in full, and it did not search all indexing databases. Vaccination status was poorly reported: 9 studies did not mention it, 2 stated the population had not been vaccinated, and 1 said about 12% had not been vaccinated; none analysed vaccination as a factor linked to Long COVID. The percentages for symptoms refer to how many included studies reported each symptom, not to the proportion of all Long COVID patients with that symptom.
Declared interests
The work was supported by FAPESP and CAPES in Brazil. The supplied text does not report a commercial sponsor or author conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the symptom percentages as patient prevalence. They are the proportion of included studies that reported each symptom. This review maps what studies have reported; it cannot show that any symptom, risk factor or vaccination status caused Long COVID.