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.