TY - JOUR
T1 - Persistent COVID-19 symptoms in a community study of 606,434 people in England
AU - Whitaker, Matthew
AU - Elliott, Joshua
AU - Chadeau-Hyam, Marc
AU - Riley, Steven
AU - Darzi, Ara
AU - Cooke, Graham
AU - Ward, Helen
AU - Elliott, Paul
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
PY - 2022/12
Y1 - 2022/12
N2 - Long COVID remains a broadly defined syndrome, with estimates of prevalence and duration varying widely. We use data from rounds 3–5 of the REACT-2 study (n = 508,707; September 2020 – February 2021), a representative community survey of adults in England, and replication data from round 6 (n = 97,717; May 2021) to estimate the prevalence and identify predictors of persistent symptoms lasting 12 weeks or more; and unsupervised learning to cluster individuals by reported symptoms. At 12 weeks in rounds 3–5, 37.7% experienced at least one symptom, falling to 21.6% in round 6. Female sex, increasing age, obesity, smoking, vaping, hospitalisation with COVID-19, deprivation, and being a healthcare worker are associated with higher probability of persistent symptoms in rounds 3–5, and Asian ethnicity with lower probability. Clustering analysis identifies a subset of participants with predominantly respiratory symptoms. Managing the long-term sequelae of COVID-19 will remain a major challenge for affected individuals and their families and for health services.
AB - Long COVID remains a broadly defined syndrome, with estimates of prevalence and duration varying widely. We use data from rounds 3–5 of the REACT-2 study (n = 508,707; September 2020 – February 2021), a representative community survey of adults in England, and replication data from round 6 (n = 97,717; May 2021) to estimate the prevalence and identify predictors of persistent symptoms lasting 12 weeks or more; and unsupervised learning to cluster individuals by reported symptoms. At 12 weeks in rounds 3–5, 37.7% experienced at least one symptom, falling to 21.6% in round 6. Female sex, increasing age, obesity, smoking, vaping, hospitalisation with COVID-19, deprivation, and being a healthcare worker are associated with higher probability of persistent symptoms in rounds 3–5, and Asian ethnicity with lower probability. Clustering analysis identifies a subset of participants with predominantly respiratory symptoms. Managing the long-term sequelae of COVID-19 will remain a major challenge for affected individuals and their families and for health services.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128147170&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-022-29521-z
DO - 10.1038/s41467-022-29521-z
M3 - Article
C2 - 35413949
AN - SCOPUS:85128147170
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 13
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 1957
ER -
