Researchers at Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente identified 17 conditions most frequently associated with long COVID-19 in a study published Oct. 12 in Nature Medicine. The study is among the first to account for preexisting conditions when defining such symptoms.
Researchers analyzed EHR data on 28,118 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 in 2020 and 70,293 who tested negative. Researchers matched COVID-19-positive patients to negative patients by age, sex, testing month and service area, controlling for any preexisting conditions reported in the last four years. This comparison allowed researchers to identify when COVID-19 likely did not play a role in the development of a given symptom.
The 17 most frequent conditions associated with long COVID-19 were:
- Other lower respiratory disease
- Diabetes
- Gastrointestinal disease
- Conditions associated with dizziness or vertigo
- Abdominal pain
- Nonspecific chest pain
- Mental health
- Anxiety disorders
- Genitourinary symptoms and ill-defined conditions
- Malaise and fatigue
- Cardiac dysrhythmias
- Other nervous system disorders
- Respiratory failure, insufficiency, arrest
- Nausea and vomiting
- Fluid and electrolyte disorders
- Other nutritional, endocrine and metabolic disorders
- Anosmia
"The overall cumulative incidence of [ post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2], as defined by COVID positive patients with a PASC-related diagnosis in the acute and persistent or late periods, is 16.5 percent," study authors said. "These findings contribute to the overall evaluation of PASC and can be employed by clinicians in their care of patients who are diagnosed with COVID-19."
View the full study here.