Observational studyJournal of internal medicine2025
Preexisting symptoms increase the risk of developing long COVID during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
Observational study in Journal of internal medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Pre-pandemic care-seeking patterns and subsequent diagnoses of post-COVID condition, post viral fatigue syndrome, and exhaustion disorder: a registry-based cohort study of 208,050 Swedish women.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2026Article
- Long COVID and risk of incident cardiovascular disease: a prospective cohort study using the Multimorbidity Integrated Registry Across Care Levels in Stockholm (MIRACLE-S) cohort.EClinicalMedicine · 2026Article
- Prevalence of depression, anxiety, fatigue, and headache before and after long COVID onset: a case-control study in the total population of Region Stockholm.BMC medicine · 2025Article
- Preexisting symptoms increase the risk of developing long COVID during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.Journal of internal medicine · 2025Observational
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundLong COVID is defined as otherwise unexplained symptoms following a SARS-CoV-2 infection.
objectiveTo examine the prevalence of preexisting symptoms compatible with long COVID in individuals with a diagnosis of long COVID.
methodsThis retrospective, observational study included the adult population (aged 18 years and older) in Region Västra Götaland, with at least one recorded healthcare contact between January 1, 2020, and November 30, 2023, from a regional database comprising all levels of healthcare contacts. Data on long COVID, relevant symptoms before and after the pandemic started (2016-2023), and SARS-CoV-2 infection status were extracted using the International Classification of Diseases version 10 (ICD-10) codes. Individuals who had been hospitalized due to a SARS-CoV-2 infection were considered separately.
resultsOut of 1,415,885 individuals, 9202 (0.6%) had been diagnosed with long COVID. Among the non-hospitalized individuals, the record of at least one of the relevant symptoms was more common in those with long COVID compared to those without it (57.6% vs. 36.3% for men and 71.6% vs. 50.4% for women), already before January 1, 2020. Among individuals with any relevant symptom, the odds ratios (ORs) of having long COVID were OR = 2.28 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.10-2.48) for men and OR = 2.32 (95% CI = 2.18-2.48 for women) after adjusting for age group, obesity, asthma, and anxiety, compared with individuals without any relevant symptom.
conclusionsIndividuals diagnosed with long COVID had more healthcare contacts for relevant symptoms even before the pandemic compared to individuals without long COVID.
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