Post-COVID syndrome? COVID-19 survivors suffer from cognitive difficulties, somatic complaints and anxiety

Year 2022, , 1328 - 1333, 25.09.2022

Uğur Eray , Başar Ayrıbaş , Ömer Furkan Çağlar , Turgut Hacıoğlu , Fatih Alibeyoğlu

https://doi.org/10.32322/jhsm.1108001

Cited By: 1

Abstract

Aim: Although primarily known as a respiratory system pathology, COVID-19 may cause various systems and cause serious complications including neuropsychiatric problems. These complications may be formulized as post-COVID syndrome. The current study aims to investigate prolonged cognitive, somatic and psychiatric effects of COVID-19.
Material and Method: A total number of 120 COVID-19 survivors were compared with 120 health controls in means of three measures, which are Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ), Body Sensations Questionnaire (BSQ), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) to assess cognitive difficulties, body perceptions and anxiety/depression.
Results: Our findings show that COVID-19 survivors have reported significantly more cognitive difficulties, increased body sensations and higher levels of anxiety. The groups did not differ in means of depression scores. Further, the measures were significantly correlated with each other.
Conclusion: This study reveal that COVID-19 survivors suffer from significant cognitive deficits in everyday activities, are significantly more sensitive to various body sensations and have increased anxiety levels. In discordance with the current literature, our findings showed that COVID-19 patients are not more depressed than healthy subjects. In summary, the current study showed that various neuropsychiatric complications may be an important part of prolonged effects of COVID-19.

Keywords

COVID-19, Neuropsychiatry, Post-COVID Syndrome, Cognitive Deficits

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