Material method
This cross-sectional study was conducted with the patients diagnosed
with COVID-19 who received inpatient treatment in December 2020 at the
pandemic service of Elazig Fethi Sekin City Hospital in Turkey. The
ethical approval was obtained with the decision No: 2021/01-31 of the
Ethics Committee of Fırat University and the decision
No:2021-01-13T12_58_32 of the Ministry of Health. Especially, the
patients with multiple symptoms were identified. The patients were
reached by phone and face-to-face interviews were provided. It took
20-25 minutes for each person to complete the form. The demographics of
the people were recorded. With the questionnaire arranged with the known
COVID-19 symptoms, elective questions were asked about how long these
symptoms persisted after treatment.
Each of the common symptoms was examined separately (16 questions). As
the last question, the participants were asked if there were any
symptoms that were not included in the questionnaire, which they thought
developed after COVID-19 treatment. Also, they were also asked to state
in writing whether they had been applied to the hospital for this
reason. The most frequently given answer was included in the survey
items (17. question). The symptom persistance duration in the survey
questions were determined by taking into account the symptoms onset time
and the average duration of treatment. To provide the reliability of the
answers, the illiterate patients, patients with communication problems
and patients diagnosed with dementia were not included in the study. The
data obtained were statistically analyzed using Microsoft Excel and SPSS
program; and charted by using the Python 3.0 Seaborn library.