High Levels of Sedentary Time in Patients with COVID-19 after Hospitalisation

Abstract

Many patients with COVID-19 experience severe and even fatal disease. Survivors may have long-term health consequences, but data on physical activity and sedentary behaviour are scarce. Therefore, we objectively assessed physical activity (PA) patterns among post-hospitalised patients with COVID-19 and explored associations with patient characteristics, disease severity and cardiac dysfunction. We objectively assessed PA, sedentary behaviour and sleep duration for 24 h/day during 8 days at 3-6 months after COVID-19 hospitalisation. PA and sedentary time were compared across pre-defined subgroups based on patient and disease characteristics, cardiac biomarker release during hospitalisation, abnormal transthoracic echocardiogram at 3-6 months post-hospitalisation and persistence of symptoms post-discharge. PA and sedentary behaviour were assessed in 37 patients (60 ± 10 years old; 78% male). Patients spent 4.2 [3.2; 5.3] h/day light-intensity PA and 1.0 [0.8; 1.4] h/day moderate-to-vigorous intensity PA. Time spent sitting was 9.8 [8.7; 11.2] h/day, which was accumulated in 6 [5; 7] prolonged sitting bouts (≥30 min) and 41 [32; 48] short sitting bouts (<30 min). No differences in PA and sedentary behaviour were found across subgroups, but sleep duration was higher in patients with versus without persistent symptoms (9.1 vs. 8.3 h/day, p = 0.02). Taken together, high levels of sedentary time are common at 3–6 months after COVID-19 hospitalisation, whilst PA and sedentary behaviour are not impacted by patient or disease characteristics.