Symptom persistence and recovery among COVID‐19 survivors during a limited outbreak in Canterbury, New Zealand: a prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: In Canterbury, near complete identification of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) cases during a limited outbreak provides unique insights into sequelae. AIMS: The current study aimed to measure symptom persistence, time to return to normal activity, generalised anxiety and health‐related quality of life (HrQoL) among COVID‐19 survivors compared with uninfected participants. METHODS: The authors conducted a prospective cohort study of people tested for COVID‐19 by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction of nasopharyngeal swabs from 1 March to 30 June 2020. They enrolled participants who tested positive and negative at a 1:2 ratio, and administered community‐acquired pneumonia, 7‐item generalised anxiety disorder (GAD‐7) and HrQoL (RAND‐36) questionnaires. RESULTS: The authors recruited 145 participants, 48 with COVID‐19 and 97 without COVID‐19. The mean time from COVID‐19 testing to completing the health questionnaire was 306 days. The mean age of patients was 46.7 years, and 70% were women. Four (8%) COVID‐19–positive and eight (8%) COVID‐19–negative participants required hospitalisation. Fatigue (30/48 [63%] vs 13/97 [13%]; P < 0.001), dyspnoea (13/48 [27%] vs 6/97 [6%]; P < 0.001) and chest pain (10/48 [21%] vs 1/97 [1%]; P < 0.001) were persistent in those with COVID‐19. Fewer COVID‐19–positive participants returned to normal activity levels (35/48 [73%] vs 94/97 97%; P < 0.001), with longer times taken (median 21 vs 14 days; P = 0.007). The GAD‐7 and RAND‐36 scores of both groups were similar across all anxiety and HrQoL subscales. CONCLUSIONS: Persistent symptoms and longer recovery times were found in COVID‐19 survivors, but not impaired generalised anxiety levels or HrQoL compared with COVID‐19–uninfected participants.