Purpose: The aim was to longitudinally explore changes in fatigue- and cognition-related symptoms during the first year after hospital treatment for COVID-19.
Method: Patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in Gothenburg, Sweden, were consecutively included from 01-07-2020 to 28-02-2021. Patients were assessed at the hospital (acute) and at 3 and 12 months after hospital discharge. Cognition was assessed with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), the Trail Making Test B (TMTB), and the Cognitive Failure Questionnaire (CFQ). Fatigue was assessed using the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory-20 (MFI-20) and the Mental Fatigue Scale (MFS). Data was analyzed with demographics and changes over time calculated with univariable mixed-effects models.
Result: In total, 122 participants were included. Analyzes of Z-scores for MoCA indicated improvement over the year, however the results were 1 SD below norm at all assessments. Alertness (TMTB scores) improved significantly from the acute assessment to the 12- month follow-up (p = <0.001, 95% CI 34.67-69.67). CFQ scores indicated cognitive impairment, and the sum scores for MFI reflected a relatively high degree of fatigue at follow-up.
Conclusion: In the first year after hospitalization for COVID-19, most patients experienced fatigue and cognitive impairment. Alertness improved, but improvements in other domains were limited.
Copyright: © 2024 Andreasson et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.