Association of Post-COVID Fatigue, Dyspnea, and Functional State with Sociodemographic Variable among the COVID-19 Sufferer of an Urban Section in Northeast India

Abstract

Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19), produced by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 a global pandemic, has many non-respiratory symptoms which persist for several months after the initial infection. The presence of post-COVID-19 conditions may affect the functional state and quality of life in COVID-19 patients who were recovered in either home isolation or acute care hospital settings. The present study is a community-based cross-sectional survey undertaken during the devastating second wave of COVID-19 and the subjects recruited were ≥ 18 years with more than 3 weeks of post-COVID state selected from the municipality areas of Guwahati Urban, Northeast India. All the participants were screened for their sociodemographic characteristics, fatigue with Chalder fatigue scale (CFS), dyspnea, and functional state with MRC dyspnea grade and post-COVID functional scale (PCFS). Descriptive statistics and Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient analysis were used for statistical analysis where the fatigue total score and variable such as smoking status (P = 0.050) and time since symptom onset of COVID-19 (P = 0.046) in weeks showing a statistical significant relationship. There is a significant association between CFS and MRC grade with PCFS with P = 0.000 and 0.008, respectively. The study concluded that post-COVID conditions such as fatigue are more prevalent among the all individuals irrespective of their COVID-19 management in either home isolation or acute hospital care settings.