More evidence of Long Term Effects of Infection

[Cort]

After 4 years, undue fatigue was present in 46% and exactly half of all patients experienced a severely impaired general quality of life.​

It's crazy how little respect infections get. Here's another study examining the long term effects of having a Q-fever infection. It found severely impact quality of life four years after coming down with Q fever infections in half the patients!

Persistence of impaired health status of Q fever patients 4 years after the first Dutch outbreak. Epidemiology and Infection. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0950268815002216 (About DOI), 6 page


SUMMARY

A significant proportion of Q fever patients from the first Dutch Q fever outbreak in 2007 showed impairment in health status up to 1 year after infection. Interested in whether this decrease in health status persisted, we set out to determine the health status in the same cohort of patients, 4 years after primary infection and to compare health status scores at the individual patient level between 1 and 4 years follow-up.

Health status was assessed with the Nijmegen Clinical Screening Instrument (NCSI). Patients were serologically tested to exclude patients with possible, probable or proven chronic Q fever. Results on the NCSI sub-domains at group level [2008 (n = 54) and 2011 (n = 46)] showed a persistent significant percentage of patients exhibiting clinically relevant (‘severe’) scores for all NCSI sub-domains.

After 4 years, undue fatigue was present in 46% and exactly half of all patients experienced a severely impaired general quality of life. Patients with NCSI scores available in both 2008 and 2011 (n = 37) showed no difference in all sub-domain scores, except for a small decrease in dyspnoea emotions in 2011.

In this group, a significant proportion of patients either improved or worsened in one or more sub-domains of health status. We conclude that at the group level, health status of Q fever patients remained impaired 4 years after primary infection. At the individual patient level, health status may change.