Introduction
In late December 2019, several cases of pneumonia of unknown origin have been reported in Wuhan, Hubei province, China 1, 2. Subsequently, a novel coronavirus was identified by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention 3, and was named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by the World Health Organization (WHO). SARS-CoV-2 has robust capacity for human-to-human transmission. A large number of patients were confirmed to been infected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan in the early stage of COVID-19 outbreak4. The Chinese government took unprecedented measures such as lockdown of the city, contact tracing, and building Fangcang shelter hospitals to curb the COVID-19 outbreak. Due to the government’s great efforts, the COVID-19 epidemic situation in Wuhan was rapidly and effectively controlled. More and more patients recovered from COVID-19 and were discharged from hospitals. However, approximately half of the recovered COVID-19 patients still suffered from various clinical symptoms 5, of which, symptom of resting palpitations was not rare.
Recently, several studies have focused on the mental health in COVID-19 patients. The results found that a majority of the infected patients experienced various mental disturbances during hospitalization and even after discharge 6. Anxiety and depression were common mental health problems in COVID-19 patients, especially in these severe cases associated with worse outcomes and longer hospital stay7.
It is well accepted that psychological distress is one of the most common causes for palpitations symptoms and is associated with the symptom severity 8, 9. Therefore, measures of psychological distress can complement medical assessment in the diagnosis of patients with palpitations 10. However, few studies have paid attention to the psychological distress in recovered COVID-19 patients with resting palpitations. The aim of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of anxiety and depression, and their association with the frequency of palpitations episodes in patients who recovered from severe COVID-19 and complained of resting palpitations.