Citation Information :
Reddy SC, Kathiravan S, Singh SM. An Analysis of Self-reported Long COVID-19 Symptoms on Twitter. J Postgrad Med Edu Res 2023; 57 (2):79-81.
Objectives: A majority of patients suffering from acute coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are expected to recover symptomatically and functionally. However, there are reports that some people continue to experience symptoms even beyond the stage of acute infection. This phenomenon has been called long COVID-19. This study attempted to analyze symptoms reported by users on Twitter self-identifying as long COVID-19.
Materials and methods: The search was carried out using the Twitter public streaming application programming interface using a relevant search term.
Analysis and results: We could identify 89 users with usable data in the tweets posted by them. Most users described multiple symptoms, the most common of which were fatigue, shortness of breath, pain, and brain fog/concentration difficulties. The most common course of symptoms was episodic.
Conclusion: Given the public health importance of this issue, the study suggests that there is a need to better study postacute COVID-19 symptoms.
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