[Rehabilitation of Health Care and Social Workers after COVID-19 Infection: Results of a Retrospective Cross-sectional Study].

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers showed a twofold increased risk of infection. Many still report persisting symptoms a few months after initial infection such as fatigue, headaches and cognitive impairment, often resulting in incapacity to work and reduced ability to carry out tasks of everyday life. When such symptoms persist for longer than three months, it is known as post-covid-syndrome (PCS). Only a few studies have evaluated outpatient rehabilitation for post-covid conditions. The objective of this study was to assess patient experience and satisfaction with rehabilitation measures.In November 2022, insured healthcare workers were asked to participate in a retrospective cross-sectional study via paper-pencil survey. The survey included sociodemographic and job-related information, acute and persisting COVID-19 symptoms, inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation measures, and their subjective experience of those measures. Data interpretation followed a descriptive analysis, while analysis of variances was used to identify significant differences.Out of the 394 people contacted, n=211 participated in the survey (response rate: 53.6%). No or mild PCS could not be found in the sample; 4.9% showed moderate and 95.1% severe PCS. In total, n=194 people reported having undergone rehabilitation measures, with 16.5% receiving outpatient and 23.7% receiving inpatient rehabilitation; 59.8% reported rehabilitation in both settings. Of the participants, 114 (65.9%) reported subjective improvement of their symptoms following rehabilitation measures. The analysis of variance did not show a significant difference between settings (p=0.054).The findings indicate that patients still experience a high burden due to persisting symptoms, but many of them report a subjectively perceived improvement of symptoms following rehabilitation measures. In this survey, outpatient rehabilitation was used mainly as follow-up after inpatient care and was essential for maintaining any improvement achieved.