Vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 reduces the risk of developing long covid symptoms
IDIAPJGol participates in a cohort study published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine that collects data from more than twenty million people from Catalonia, the United Kingdom and Estonia. The work shows that vaccines against covid-19 are up to 52 % effective in preventing post-covid syndrome
Author: Ariadna Creus i Àngel García, Banc d'imatges infermeres
Covid-19 vaccines reduce the risk of persistent covid symptoms, especially among adults. This is the conclusion of a study published in the journal The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, which analyses data from more than twenty million people, both vaccinated and not, from Catalonia, the United Kingdom and Estonia. This is the first multinational study to evaluate the effectiveness of vaccination to prevent long-term complications of infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The work considers data from ten million people vaccinated against covid-19 and ten million unvaccinated people, treated in primary care in the three countries. The data come from the records of the Information System for the Development of Research in Primary Care (SIDIAP) of the Institut d’Investigació en Atenció Primària Jordi Gol (IDIAPJGol), of the Clinical Practice Research Datalink of the United Kingdom (CPRD GOLD and AURUM), and from the register of insured persons of the Estonian national health system (CORIVA database).
The data analysed show an effectiveness of the covid-19 vaccines in preventing the development of persistent covid symptoms of between 29 % and 52 %. The authors of the study have observed that all vaccines are effective in reducing the risk of developing symptoms of persistent covid, although the Pfizer and Biontech vaccine, with mRNA technology, shows somewhat greater effectiveness than that of the University of Oxford and Astra Zeneca.
The study published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine includes 5.3 million records of people treated in primary care centres in Catalonia, of which 2.7 million had not received any dose of the covid-19 vaccine and 2.6 million had received it at the time the study was conducted.
Talita Duarte-Salles, who is one of the IDIAPJGol researchers who signed the work, together with Elena Roel and Núria Mercadé Besora, hopes that the results of this study “will stimulate greater adoption of vaccines against covid-19 among adults who are reluctant to get vaccinated.”
Postcovid syndrome
The World Health Organization defines persistent covid-19 or post-covid syndrome as the appearance of symptoms that cannot be explained by an alternative diagnosis that appear three months after a mild or moderate SARS-CoV-2 virus infection. The most frequent symptoms of persistent covid-19 are fatigue, feelings of shortness of breath or cognitive dysfunctions, among others. These manifestations can fluctuate over time, with remissions and relapses.
Reference of the article
Català M, Mercadé-Besora N, Kolde R, Trinh NTH, Roel E, Burn E, Rathod-Mistry T, Kostka K, Man WY, Delmestri A, Nordeng HME, Uusküla A, Duarte-Salles T, Prieto-Alhambra D, Jödicke AM. The effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines to prevent long COVID symptoms: staggered cohort study of data from the UK, Spain, and Estonia. Lancet Respir Med. 2024 Jan 11:S2213-2600(23)00414-9. doi: 10.1016/S2213-2600(23)00414-9. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38219763.
D’altra banda, el 80 % dels professionals enquestats afirma que demanen permís al pacient abans d’utilitzar el mòbil, mentre que això només ho corrobora el 50 % dels usuaris.
El primer signant de l’estudi, Yoseba Cánovas, metge de l’Equip d’Atenció Primària Passeig de Sant Joan, de l’Institut Català de la Salut i investigador de l’IDIAPJGol, afirma que els resultats de la investigació indiquen que “la regulació de l’ús dels dispositius mòbils a les consultes d’atenció primària ajudaria a reduir les interrupcions durant les visites i a millorar la qualitat assistencial.”
Els autors del treball aconsellen als professionals de la salut que tinguin en compte que l’ús del telèfon mòbil durant les visites pot generar insatisfacció entre els pacients i reclamen a les organitzacions sanitàries que facin recomanacions sobre l’ús d’aquests dispositius durant l’activitat assistencial.
Referència de l’article
Cánovas Zaldúa Y, Alòs F, Costa Mur M, Alarcón Belmonte I, Feijoo Rodríguez V, Vidal-Alaball J. Análisis de las interrupciones generadas por el uso de los smartphones entre los profesionales sanitarios de Atención Primaria [Analysis of the interruptions generated by the use of smartphones among Primary Care Health professionals]. Aten Primaria. 2024 Jan 16;56(4):102855. Spanish. doi: 10.1016/j.aprim.2023.102855. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38232681; PMCID: PMC10803903.
