Longitudinal Multidimensional Symptom Experience Following COVID-19 Hospitalization: Implications from a Holistic Perspective.

BACKGROUND

While COVID-19 has lessened in urgency for the general United States population's day-to-day functioning, it continues to have significant impact for those who live with a wide range of ongoing sequelae. Wide variation of Long COVID symptoms must be considered as nurses facilitate holistic patient-centered care.

OBJECTIVES

We aimed to describe patients' symptom experiences from 3 to 12 months following COVID-19 hospitalization.

METHODS

A longitudinal descriptive design was used to explore adults' symptom experiences of Long COVID at 4 time points up to 12 months following hospital admission for COVID-19 between October 2020 and May 2022.

RESULTS

Most of the 37 participants (87%) continued to experience at least 1 physical symptom at 12 months, which was not significantly different than at 3 months (90%). Fatigue was the most common symptom reported at all the time points. Group mean scores on all PROMIS measures and the Impact of Events Scale-Revised did not indicate dysfunction; however, 37% reported having somewhat or a lot of symptom impact on their normal routines. In addition, at least 50% reported currently experiencing quality of life worse than prior to COVID at each time point.

CONCLUSIONS

Long COVID symptoms continue to affect significant numbers of people with ongoing impact to daily routines and quality of life. Nurses are in a unique position to generate new evidence on identifying the subset of patients recovering from COVID-19 who are at higher risk for developing Long COVID and provide holistic assessments, monitoring, and interventions to mitigate patients' physical, emotional, and mental health symptoms.