Background: Long-COVID has emerged as a global health concern in the aftermath of the pandemic with persistent symptoms up to two years after initial illness.

Aim: To evaluate the medium and long-term effects of hospitalisation due to COVID-19.

Methods PHOSP-COVID is a prospective, multi-centre study across 83 UK sites of hospitalised COVID-19 survivors. Tier 1 cohort mainly included hospital data collection where Tier 2 involved attending 2 research visits to obtain a wide range of physical measures, biological samples, patient reported outcomes and evaluation of ongoing symptoms and perceived recovery.

Results: Between August 2020 and March 2022, 7935 participants were recruited: 5238 to Tier 1 and 2697 to Tier 2. Overall, the cohort has a mean age of 59 years, 40% were female, 82% White and 55% had 2 or more pre-existing comorbidities. About 38% of the cohort required non-invasive or invasive ventilation on admission. At one year post discharge, only 30% of Tier 2 participants reported feeling fully recovered, 19% had a new disability and there was a mean drop of -0.11 (0.22) in EQ5D5L Utility Index measuring health related quality of life a from a pre-COVID level of 0.82 (0.23) to 0.71 (0.25). Over 92% of the participants reported at least one symptom, with a median number of 9 symptoms (IQR 4?16) and 25% had clinically significant symptoms of anxiety and depression. The mean percentage of predicted incremental shuttle walk test, a measure of physical performance, was 59% with mean walking distance of 440 (253) meters.

Conclusion: In the largest UK study, only third of the participants felt fully recovered at one year with significant burden of ongoing symptoms and impaired physical performance