Post-Covid-19 Symptoms in Children: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Abstract

Aim: To assess children's self or parental-rated health following Aotearoa New Zealand's (NZ) first widespread community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in February 2022.

Methods: This cross-sectional study recruited participants aged 3-20 years who had consented to be contacted after taking part in the NZ Health Survey. Participants over 15 years or guardians of younger children were surveyed by telephone between November 2022 and April 2023. Ordinal logistic regression was used to estimate the effect of Covid-19 infection on self-reported health.

Results: The study included 4264 children and young adults, with 70.6% reporting having tested positive for Covid-19 at least once (via PCR or RAT test). Almost one-quarter (24.5%) reported more frequent coughs, colds and stomach bugs after Covid-19 infection. One-fifth reported headaches (21.7%), fatigue (20.6%) or stomach aches (14.6%) and 13.1% reported anxiety that was new since having Covid-19. At baseline, there were no significant differences between the self-rated health status of those children who later had Covid-19 and those who did not (p = 0.5274). Following widespread SARS-CoV-2 transmission, those who reported having had Covid-19 were significantly more likely to report a poorer health status than those who did not (p < 0.0001).

Conclusions: Greater than one-fifth of NZ children reported persisting symptoms after Covid-19 infection. Post-Covid-19 symptoms impacted the quality of children's day-to-day lives. Preventing infection is key to preventing post-Covid-19 symptoms.

Keywords: children; fatigue; headaches; long Covid; post‐Covid symptoms; young people.

FIGURE 1

Timing of the telephone survey period (November 2022 to April 2023), shown as a red line, in relation to the major waves of Omicron cases which started in February 2022. Source: Te Whatu Ora, https://tewhatuora.shinyapps.io/covid19/.