Self-reported long COVID-19 symptoms are rare among vaccinated healthcare workers

Introduction: COVID-19 pandemic adversely affected healthcare workers (HCWs). Here, we evaluate the occurence of long-COVID-19 symtoms among HCWs.Methods: This is a questionnaire-based study of HCWs who had COVID-19 in two medical centers in Saudi Arabia and were mostly vaccinated.Results: The study included 243 HCWs with a mean age (+ SD) of 36.1 (+ 7.6) years. Of them, 223 (91.8%) had three doses of COVID-19 vaccine, 12 (4.9%) had four doses, and 5 (2.1%) had two doses. The most common symptoms at the start of the illness were cough (180, 74.1%), shortness of breath (124, 51%), muscle ache (117, 48.1%), headache (113, 46.5%), sore throat (111, 45.7%), diarrhea (109, 44.9%) and loss of taste (108, 44.4%). Symptoms lasted for < one week in 117 (48.1%), > one week and < 1 month in 89 (36.6%), > 2 months and < 3 months in 9 (3.7%), and > 3 months in 15 (6.2%). The main symptoms present > 3 months were hair loss (8, 3.3%), cough (5, 2.1%), and diarrhea (5, 2.1%). A binomial regression analysis showed no relationship between persistence of symptoms for > 3 months and other demographic or clinical symptoms characteristics. Conclusion: The study showed a low rate of the occurence of long-COVID > 3 months during the Omicron wave among mostly vaccinated HCWs with no significant comorbidities. Furhter studies are needed to examine the effect of different vaccines on long-COVID-19 among HCWs.& COPY; 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).