Does mild COVID-19 in healthcare workers affect functional capacity and work performance in short term?

Abstract

Background

Disproportionately increased workload is one of the main reasons affecting work performance. Healthcare workers who got infected by COVID-19 were further affected mentally and physically which had an impact on their work performance.

Objective

In this study, we aimed to show whether work performance is affected even in people with mild Covid 19 disease or whether it is a part of Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome (PACS).

Methods

Thirty healthcare workers in a tertiary hospital had COVID-19 one month ago and gender and age matched 30 healthy workers without a history of COVID-19 (control group) was enrolled between January 2021 and March 2021. Work performance was assessed on a 7-point Likert scale. Participants performed 1-min sit-to-stand test (1MSTS), 5 times sit-to-stand test (5TSTS), and 6-min walk test (6MWT).

Results

All participants in the COVID-19 group had a mild (non-hospitalized) form of the disease. 23 patients had ongoing symptoms 4–7 weeks after the initial symptoms of COVID-19 (fatigue/malaise (n = 9), myalgia/arthralgia (n = 7), cough (n = 7), loss of smell/taste (n = 5), headache (n = 5), dyspnea (n = 4), and diarrhea (n = 1). The increase in systolic blood pressure after 6MWT was higher in the COVID group (p = 0.018).

Conclusion

The functional status and work performance in healthcare workers with COVID-19 infection were negatively affected in the first month even if the disease severity was mild. It is important to prevent both acute and long-term physical and mental complications of the disease and to ensure that these strategies improve the functional status and work performance of healthcare professionals.