Long Covid symptoms and diagnosis in primary care: A cohort study using structured and unstructured data in The Health Improvement Network primary care database.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Long Covid is a widely recognised consequence of COVID-19 infection, but little is known about the burden of symptoms that patients present with in primary care, as these are typically recorded only in free text clinical notes.

Aims

To compare symptoms in patients with and without a history of COVID-19, and investigate symptoms associated with a Long Covid diagnosis.

Methods

We used primary care electronic health record data until the end of December 2020 from The Health Improvement Network (THIN), a Cegedim database. We included adults registered with participating practices in England, Scotland or Wales. We extracted information about 89 symptoms and 'Long Covid' diagnoses from free text using natural language processing. We calculated hazard ratios (adju

SUBMITTER: Shah AD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10521988 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature