Nursing care for users with post-COVID conditions in primary and specialized health care

Abstract

Objective: To analyze and compare the nursing care provided to users with Post-COVID Conditions (PCC) in Primary Health Care (PHC) and Specialized Care (SC). Method: This is an analytical cross-sectional study carried out with 226 nursing professionals from PHC and SC in Brazil. Data were collected through a self-responding form published by the Nursing Councils and on social media and were analyzed using descriptive statistics, followed by the t-test to compare means and chi-square tests to study associations with categorical data. The study was approved by the UFSCar Research Ethics Committee. Results: An association between PHC nursing professionals and the identification of persistent cough as the most common symptom of PCC (80.2% vs 50%; p< 0.01) and neurocognitive deficit as the most severe symptom (62% vs 42.1%; p = 0.04); and an association between SC professionals and the identification of loss of appetite as the least common symptom of PCC (43.7% vs 22%; p = 0.02). Conclusion: The results highlight challenges such as the difficulty in identifying PCC, the absence of widely used protocols, and the limited training of PHC and SC nursing professionals, impacting the quality of care.