Long COVID19 prevalence among in Long COVID19 prevalence among a sample of infected people in Erbil City Long COVID19 prevalence among infected people

Abstract

Long-term effects of the disease were founded and described as post-COVID-19 syndrome post-COVID syndrome are the symptoms that develop and last for four weeks or even months and cannot be explained by an alternative diagnosis, symptoms may remain for more than three months, The cause of persistent symptoms is unclear, Objectives: This study aimed to Estimate the prevalence of residual symptoms among a sample of people infected with COVID-19 who survive and recover in Erbil city, and to find out the relation between the severity of the disease and post COVID-19 syndrome. And to know the incidence of post-COVID-19 syndrome in chronic disease patients.Patients and Methods:This cross-sectional study was conducted in 6 primary health care centers in 6 municipalities in Erbil city, Kurdistan region, Iraq. Convenience sample of randomly selected 300 patients was involved in the study depending on inclusion criteria. Over a period of 1year starting from the 1st of March 2021 till the end of February 2022.Results: The prevalence of post-COVID syndrome among the 300 cases was 54,67%, from these cases 11.7% with one symptom, 26% with two symptoms and 17% with three or more symptoms. there was significant statistical association between persistent symptoms and severity of COVID-19, Also there was significant statistical association between persistent symptoms and chronic disease, most (67.9%) respondents with post COVID-19 syndromes suffered from chronic disease, and p-value was 0.001. And there was significant statistical association between persistent symptoms and disease duration, most (73%) of cases with post COVID-19 syndrome got the disease from 7-14 days while 54.5% of them struggled with COVID-19 more than 14 days.