Sung S, Kim SH, Kim Y, Bae YS, Chie EK. Exploring depressive symptom trajectories in COVID-19 patients with clinically mild condition in South Korea using remote patient monitoring: longitudinal data analysis.
Front Public Health 2024;
12:1265848. [PMID:
38660352 PMCID:
PMC11039781 DOI:
10.3389/fpubh.2024.1265848]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2023] [Accepted: 03/28/2024] [Indexed: 04/26/2024] Open
Abstract
Background
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Korean government temporarily allowed full scale telehealth care for safety and usability. However, limited studies have evaluated the impact of telehealth by analyzing the physical and/or mental health data of patients with COVID-19 diagnosis collected through telehealth targeting Korean population.
Objective
This study aimed to identify subgroup of depressive symptom trajectories in patients with clinically mild COVID-19 using collected longitudinal data from a telehealth-based contactless clinical trial.
Methods
A total of 199 patients with COVID-19 were accrued for contactless clinical trial using telehealth from March 23 to July 20, 2022. Depressive symptoms were measured using the patient health questionnaire-9 on the start day of quarantine, on the final day of quarantine, and 1 month after release from quarantine. Additionally, acute COVID-19 symptoms were assessed every day during quarantine. This study used a latent class mixed model to differentiate subgroups of depressive symptom trajectories and a logistic regression model with Firth's correction to identify associations between acute COVID-19 symptoms and the subgroups.
Results
Two latent classes were identified: class 1 with declining linearity at a slow rate and class 2 with increasing linearity. Among COVID-19 symptoms, fever, chest pain, and brain fog 1 month after release from quarantine showed strong associations with class 2 (fever: OR, 19.43, 95% CI, 2.30-165.42; chest pain: OR, 6.55, 95% CI, 1.15-34.61; brain fog: OR, 7.03, 95% CI 2.57-20.95). Sleeping difficulty and gastrointestinal symptoms were also associated with class 2 (gastrointestinal symptoms: OR, 4.76, 95% CI, 1.71-14.21; sleeping difficulty: OR, 3.12, 95% CI, 1.71-14.21).
Conclusion
These findings emphasize the need for the early detection of depressive symptoms in patients in the acute phase of COVID-19 using telemedicine. Active intervention, including digital therapeutics, may help patients with aggravated depressive symptoms.
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