The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which caused one of the largest pandemics in human history. Most patients make a full recovery after overcoming the infection, however, a certain proportion of the infected have symptoms that persist for a long time after the illness.
In this retrospective study, we analysed the demographic and clinical characteristics, the type of post-covid complications and the treatment outcomes of patients treated for these complications at the Department of Neurology and the Department of Kidney Diseases and Dialysis of General Hospital Celje between 1 October 2020 and 31 January 2022. The data for the study were obtained from the hospital's e-information system Birpis and discharge letters.
We included 78 patients in the study (51 males; 65.4%). Median age of all patients was 75 years. At the Department of Neurology, the most frequent or the main post-covid complications were cerebral infarction (53.3%; 16/30), critical illness myopathy and epileptic seizure (both 13.3%; 4/30), in patients admitted to the Department of Kidney Diseases and Dialysis, exacerbation of chronic kidney disease (25.0%; 12/48), urinary tract infection (18.8%; 9/48), bacterial pneumonia (16.7%; 8/48) and acute renal failure (12.5%; 6/48). Patients at the Department of Kidney Diseases and Dialysis were statistically significantly older, had significantly more comorbidities and received a higher number of drugs in chronic therapy than those at the Department of Neurology and their length of hospital stay was significantly shorter. There were no significant differences between patients with severe and mild COVID-19 within each ward in sex, age, number of comorbidities, number of drugs in their chronic therapy, as well as the length of hospitalisation. During hospitalisation, 12 patients died, significantly more males (91.7%). There were no statistically significant differences in age, number of comorbidities, number of of drugs prescribed in their chronic therapy and severity of COVID-19 between patients who died and those who were discharged.
Patients had multiple complications in different organ systems, requiring complex management and rehabilitation, however, we cannot say absolutely that all complications were due to COVID-19. In the future, we need more research and longer follow-up of post-covid complications to understand the full spectrum of consequences that can be caused by COVID-19.
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