Psychiatric morbidity and protracted symptoms in recovered COVID-19 patients

Abstract We investigated the psychiatric symptomatology and the protracted symptoms in recently recovered COVID-19 patients. This cross-sectional study assessed 284 patients recruited from a tertiary hospital. Patients completed a web-based survey on socio-demographic data, past medical/psychiatric history, and additional information relevant to the outbreak conditions. The psychiatric status was assessed using the Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and MINI suicidality scale. Patients completed a checklist for the acute symptom burden and protracted symptoms that were experienced after the acute infection. After a mean of 50 days following the diagnosis of COVID-19, 98 patients (34.5%) reported clinically significant PTSD, anxiety, and/or depression, with PTSD being the most common condition reported (25.4%). One hundred and eighteen patients (44.3%) reported one or more protracted symptom(s), with fatigue, muscle aches, alteration of smell/taste, headache and difficulty in concentration, being the most common symptoms reported. Predictors of PTSD symptom severity were the female gender, past traumatic events, protracted symptoms, perceived stigmatization, and a negative view on the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic. Binary logistic regression analysis showed that PTSD symptom severity was the sole independent predictor of the presence of protracted symptoms. Our results suggest that COVID-19 patients may be prone to substantial psychological distress in the first months after the infection. The protracted symptoms were also frequent in this period, and these were related to the posttraumatic psychiatric morbidity. Both the psychiatric morbidity and the protracted symptoms were independent of the initial infection severity. Further research on the neurobiological commonalities between the protracted symptoms and PTSD in COVID-19 patients is warranted.