Longer hospital stays tied to greater odds of one-month cardiopulmonary symptoms and new disability<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/b><\/p>\n
THURSDAY, Sept. 9, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Many U.S. patients who survive COVID-19 still face new symptoms and disability one month after hospital discharge, according to a study published online Aug. 18 in the Journal of Hospital Medicine<\/em>.<\/p>\n Theodore J. Iwashyna, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and colleagues measured incident symptoms after COVID-19 hospitalization (August 2020 to January 2021). The analysis included one-month follow-up survey responses from 253 participants in the Biology and Longitudinal Epidemiology: COVID-19 Observational study.<\/p>\n The researchers found that patients were hospitalized for a median of five days, were a median age of 60 years, and were mostly non-Hispanic White (53.8 percent; 9.1 percent non-Hispanic Black and 32.8 percent Hispanic). At one-month posthospitalization, most respondents (54.9 percent) reported a new or worsened cardiopulmonary symptom, 16 percent reported new or increased oxygen use, and 84.2 percent reported not feeling fully back to their pre-COVID-19 functioning. More than half (52.8 percent) reported new limitations in activities of daily living, as well as financial toxicities, including job loss or change (19.8 percent), having a loved one take time off (37.8 percent), and using up one’s savings (23.2 percent). There was an association between longer lengths of hospital stay and greater odds of one-month cardiopulmonary symptoms (adjusted odds ratio, 1.82 per additional week in the hospital) and new disability (adjusted odds ratio, 2.06).<\/p>\n “This isn’t patients saying, ‘I can’t run quite as far as I used to.’ This is them saying ‘I can’t walk, I can’t cook, I can’t shower.’ The effects are devastating,” a coauthor said in a statement. “Unfortunately, we saw this even among patients with quite short hospital stays.”<\/p>\n