Introduction:

Mid- and long-term health effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection have been increasingly recognised. Our goal was to evaluate health-related quality of life in critically ill patients, treated in a non-ICU setting, and associated factors with poor outcomes.

Methods:

Health-related quality of life in SARS-CoV-2 survivors was evaluated 3 and 6 months after discharge, using St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire and EuroQoL 5-Dimension 3-Level. Anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder prevalence was accessed at both visits. Patients with normal or significant improvement on St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire (group 1) were compared to those who did not improve (group 2) at 6 months.

Results:

117 patients were analysed. Median age was 64 years and 61.5% were male. Between T3 and T6 was observed a reduction in total and specific domain scores of St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire (p <0.001). Longitudinal improvement was observed in mobility domain (p = 0.029) and Visual Analogic Scale (p = 0.006) of EuroQoL 5-Dimension 3-Level. Rates of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder decline over time (p <0.05). After 6 months, 4.3% of participants have not return to work and 23% were in group 2. Group 2 had worst results in St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire (p<0.001); and in mobility (p = 0.002), self-care (p <0.001), and usual activities (p = 0.014) of EuroQoL 5-Dimension 3-Level domains. Logistic regression comparing groups 1 and 2 did not find association between outcomes and age, gender, comorbidities, length of stay, do not intubate order, worst PaO2/FiO2 during hospitalization and respiratory support technique.

Conclusion:

Several domains of health-related quality of life seem to be impaired after SARS-CoV-2 severe infection but improvement seems to be the rule for most patients.

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