Evaluation of long COVID patients applying to the emergency department

Objective: It was aimed to investigate the factors (demographic characteristics, additional diseases, treatment site, radiological involvement, laboratory parameters) that cause Covid-19 patients to apply to the hospital after the disease, and to create an effective way for ongoing symptoms and clinics in this study. Materials and Methods: Medical files of 500 patients presenting to emergency departments with ongoing symptomatic clinic; demographic characteristics, additional diseases, treatment site, radiological involvement, laboratory parameters were examined and the factors that were predicted to affect the symptoms at admission were recorded between January 2020 - November 2022, laboratory, serology, imaging or clinical diagnosis and treatment of Covid-19 Results: Of the patient group included in the study, 55% (n=275) were female and 45% (n=225) were male, and the mean age was 51.28± 14.73 (18-90). A significant relationship was found between high age and fever in the Long Covid period. It wasn't observed a significant correlation between gender and age in other symptoms and laboratory findings. While 71.6% of the patients had at least one comorbidity; The presence of CAD or malignancy among the comorbidities caused a higher rate of inpatient follow-up in the acute period. In our evaluated patient group, the most common symptoms at admission were shortness of breath (73.6%), weakness/fatigue (68%), myalgia (60.8%), exertional dyspnea (53.6%), and anorexia (47%). Between shortness of breath and AST, ALT, BUN, procalcitonin; A significant correlation was found between weakness/fatigue and glucose values. The relationship between ward or intensive care hospitalization in the acute phase of the disease and CRP, procalcitonin values was found to be significant. A significant correlation was found between the patients who were hospitalized in the acute and prolonged period of the disease and the patients' vitals, WBC, neutrophil, glucose, ALT, BUN, procalcitonin, CRP, pro-BNP, D-Dimer and PAB values in the Long Covid period, on the day of admission. Conclusion: Although the destructive power of the coronavirus disease has decreased, the number of individuals who survived the disease is increasing day by day. With the increasing number of individuals, the extent to which the ongoing and newly developed symptoms after Covid-19 affect public health becomes more prominent. Therefore, we think that more studies should be done to prevent this problem that affects public health and the health system, to identify the causes and to develop more appropriate treatment methods. Keywords: Covid-19, Long Covid, follow-up, shortness of breath, fever, follow-up, fatigue