Prevalência de déficit cognitivo em pacientes pós COVID-19

Abstract

Objective: To describe the prevalence of memory deficit in post-COVID-19 patients and verify its distribution according to sociodemographic, behavioral, health and hospitalization characteristics. Methodology: Cross-sectional research, carried out with post-COVID19 patients, who required hospitalization during the acute phase of the disease in the city of Passo Fundo - RS. Data were obtained through interviews and were collected using the “REDcap” application. To determine the outcome, memory deficit, the instrument "Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination" was used. As exposure, sociodemographic, health and clinical characteristics presented during the acute period of COVID19 and hospitalization were used. The study was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Fronteira Sul (UFFS) under opinion number 5,697,491. The analysis included relative frequencies, prevalence of memory deficit (CI95) and the variation of its distribution according to its independent variables (5% chi-square). Results: In the sample of 150 participants, there was a predominance of women (52.7%), aged over 60 years (67.3%), of white race/skin color (72.0%). Regarding health characteristics, most participants reported having a good/very good/great perception of their general health status before COVID-19 (74.7%) and most of them had received at least two doses of the vaccine against the disease (77.3%). The prevalence of memory deficit was 44% (95CI 36-52%). In the sphere of the presence of memory deficit by the distribution of studied variables, statistically significant values were found in relation to elderly individuals (51.5%, p<0.005), individuals who never studied or only attended elementary school (58.8% , p<0.001), who do not perform paid work (p<0.001), general perception of fair/poor health before COVID-19 (60.5%, p<0.015) and who did not have a previous history of thrombosis (48, 6%, p<0.042). Conclusion: the data obtained in the present study showed a high prevalence of memory deficits in the study participants. In addition, the need for more studies aimed at addressing the previous condition of individuals with the development, or not, of sequelae in the cognitive area was evidenced.