COVID-19 patient accounts of illness severity, treatments and lasting symptoms

Thomason, Moriah E.; Werchan, Denise; Hendrix, Cassandra L.

First-person accounts of COVID-19 illness and treatment complement and enrich data derived from electronic medical or public health records. With patient-reported data, it is uniquely possible to ascertain in-depth contextual information as well as behavioral and emotional responses to illness. The Novel Coronavirus Illness Patient Report (NCIPR) dataset includes complete survey responses from 1,592 confirmed COVID-19 patients ages 18 to 98. NCIPR survey questions address symptoms, medical complications, home and hospital treatments, lasting effects, anxiety about illness, employment impacts, quarantine behaviors, vaccine-related behaviors and effects, and illness of other family/household members. Additional questions address financial security, perceived discrimination, pandemic impacts (relationship, social, stress, sleep), health history, and coping strategies. Detailed patient reports of illness, environment, and psychosocial impact, proximal to timing of infection and considerate of demographic variation, is meaningful for understanding pandemic-related public health from the perspective of those that contracted the disease.