Long-term Complications of COVID-19 in Nursing Staff; a Retrospective Longitudinal Study

Introduction:

Although the lungs are the main target of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), infection is also associatedwith a high rate of extra-pulmonary complications. This study aimed to evaluate the one-year incidence of long-termCOVID-19 complications among the nursing staff.

This study is a retrospective longitudinal study. All nursingstaff working in public hospitals affiliated with Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences who had been affectedwith COVID-19 were included in the study via convenience sampling method. The patients were recruited from 20thFebruary 2020 to 20th March 2021.

1762 nursing staff with a mean age of 35.08 ± 8.02 (Range: 22-66) years werestudied (73.5% female). The results showed that among those who reported at least one type of complication, the dura-tion of complications was significantly longer than 1 week and the median was 8 weeks. The findings demonstrated thatcomplications occurred in 65% of infected females. For men, this rate was 62.3%. Generalized pain, anxiety disorders,and skin complications were among the complications that were significantly more common in women than in men.Additionally, the incidence of anosmia, ageusia, anxiety disorders, and skin complications was significantly higher inyounger people than in older people. The comparison of complications revealed that nurses were significantly morelikely than other occupations to experience respiratory complications, anosmia and ageusia, generalized pain, and skincomplications and that outpatients experienced significantly more complications than hospitalized patients.

Conclusion:

The one-year cumulative incidence of long-term complications in nursing staff with COVID-19 was 64.3%. Themost common complications were respiratory complications, generalized pain, anosmia, and ageusia, respectively.