Abstract
Background: Despite high numbers of children and young people (CYP) having acute COVID, there has been no prospective follow-up of CYP to establish the pattern of health and well-being over a year following infection.
Methods: A non-hospitalised, national sample of 5086 (2909 SARS-COV-2 Positive; 2177 SARS-COV-2 Negative at baseline) CYP aged 11–17 completed questionnaires 6- and 12-months after PCR-tests between October 2020 and March 2021 confirming SARS-CoV-2 infection (excluding CYP with subsequent (re)infections). SARS-COV-2 Positive CYP was compared to age, sex and geographically-matched test-negative CYP.
Findings: Ten of 21 symptoms had a prevalence less than 10% at baseline, 6- and 12-months post-test in both test-positives and test-negatives. Of the other 11 symptoms, in test-positives who had these at baseline, the prevalence of all symptoms declined greatly by 12-months. For CYP first describing one of these at 6-months, there was a decline in prevalence by 12-months. The overall prevalence of 9 of 11 symptoms declined by 12-months. As many CYP first described shortness of breath and tiredness at either 6- or 12-months, the overall prevalence of these two symptoms in test-positives appeared to increase by 6-months and increase further by 12-months. However, within-individual examination demonstrated that the prevalence of shortness of breath and tiredness actually declined in those first describing these two symptoms at either baseline or 6-months. This pattern was also evident for these two symptoms in test-negatives. Similar patterns were observed for validated measures of poor quality of life, emotional and behavioural difficulties, poor well-being and fatigue. Moreover, broadly similar patterns and results were noted for the sub-sample (N = 1808) that had data at baseline, 3-, 6- and 12-months post-test.
Interpretation: In CYP, the prevalence of adverse symptoms reported at the time of a positive PCR-test declined over 12-months. Some test-positives and test-negatives reported adverse symptoms for the first time at six- and 12-months post-test, particularly tiredness, shortness of breath, poor quality of life, poor well-being and fatigue suggesting they are likely to be caused by multiple factors.
Funding: NIHR/ UKRI (ref: COVLT0022).
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 100554 |
| Journal | The Lancet Regional Health - Europe |
| Volume | 25 |
| Early online date | 5 Dec 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Feb 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information: Terence Stephenson is Chair of the Health Research Authority and therefore recused himself from the Research Ethics Application. Trudie Chalder is a member of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence committee for long COVID. She has written self-help books on chronic fatigue and has done workshops on chronic fatigue and post infectious syndromes. Dougal Hargreaves had a part-time secondment as Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser from September 2020 to September 2021, whereby his salary for 2 days per week was paid by the Department for Education (England) to Imperial College London. Sophie Bennett and Roz Shafran are both part of Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, where their research is made possible by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre. Sophie Bennett and Roz Shafran are co-authors on a book published in August 2020, titled Oxford Guide to Brief and Low Intensity Interventions for Children and Young People. All remaining authors have no conflicts of interest.This work is independent research jointly funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) who have awarded funding grant number COVLT0022. All research at Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity NHS Foundation Trust and UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health is made possible by the NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, UKRI or the Department of Health and Social Care. SMPP is supported by a UK Medical Research Council Career Development Award (ref: MR/P020372/1). DH is supported by the NIHR through the Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) North-West London and the School of Public Health Research. SRW is supported by the UKRI Medical Research Council (MC_UU_00002/2) and the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC-1215-20014).
Open Access: This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Citation: Snehal M. Pinto Pereira, Roz Shafran, Manjula D. Nugawela, Laura Panagi, Dougal Hargreaves, Shamez N. Ladhani, Sophie D. Bennett, Trudie Chalder, Emma Dalrymple, Tamsin Ford, Isobel Heyman, Kelsey McOwat, Natalia K. Rojas, Kishan Sharma, Ruth Simmons, Simon R. White, Terence Stephenson, Natural course of health and well-being in non-hospitalised children and young people after testing for SARS-CoV-2: a prospective follow-up study over 12 months, The Lancet Regional Health - Europe, Volume 25, 2023, 100554, ISSN 2666-7762, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanepe.2022.100554.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanepe.2022.100554.
UN SDGs
This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
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SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being
Keywords
- Children and young people
- Long COVID
- Longitudinal
- Symptoms
- Well-being
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