CHARACTERIZATION OF PATIENTS IN THE POST-ACUTE PHASE OF COVID-19 WHO PRESENTED THEMSELVES TO AN EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT

Patients that recovered from COVID-19 may remain with symptoms which can persist for an uncertain period of time.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the reasons why patients who passed the acute phase of COVID-19 presented themselves to the Emergency Department.

We selected 87 patients admitted to the Emergency Department of the Bucharest University Emergency Hospital between 01.01.2021-31.05.2021. Patients had pulmonary fibrosis (11.49%), pleural effusion (16.09%) or a history of hypertension (73.56%), type 2 diabetes (42.53%), stroke (24.14%), malignant diseases (10.34%).

Association between neutrophil levels and acute stroke and between fibrinogen levels and alveolar condensation were identified. The percentage of deaths was significantly higher in the subgroup of subjects that had maxim 11 days of hospitalization (p=0.004); we observed a trend of association between the age of more than 51 years old and admission in the Emergency Unit at less than a month after the SARS Cov2 infection, the positive result at the RT-PCR test or a lung damage of over 30% (p<0.05).

A significant percentage of patients that were admitted to the Emergency Unit post COVID-19 had chronic pathologies and their characteristics were associated with neutrophilia, high fibrinogen levels or length of hospitalization.